An angry mum says that children at Falmouth Sea Cadets Unit "feel punished" after having to miss out on parades that the unit had been taking part in for 20 years.

The centre was closed at the beginning of March because of health and safety issues. This meant that the children had to miss the St Nazaire parade on March 18 as well as boating courses and practice for their drill competition.

The mum, who did not want to be named, contacted The Packet and said: "I don't want details, I want to know why they are punishing about 40 cadets.

"There are loads of rumours circulating, but I don't care about that, the staff are amazing, [my son] loves cadets and it is just disgusting that they are still taking our subscription money, but they can't even send us a courtesy email to say 'no news yet, but we will keep in touch.'"

The sea cadets have since contacted the woman to inform her that the centre was closed in order to carry out essential training and ensure that all health and safety issues are reported in a way that complies with official guidelines.

These measures will take up to two months in total as the unit is due to re-open at the end of April.

A spokesperson for the Marine Society and Sea Cadets said: "We are committed to ensuring that cadet wellbeing is central to all that we do and we are working hard to ensure the appropriate arrangements are being made to enable the unit to re-open as soon as is practically possible. We are confident this is a temporary measure and we are keeping cadets, their parents and volunteers up to speed with developments."

The mother told The Packet: "We were just getting a little bit p***ed off. It was really weird, we didn't understand what was going on."