Rats, work schedules and vehicle routes, and an un-Cornish name are among the concerns aired by neighbours of the former Madeira Hotel on Falmouth seafront, where demolition work began recently.

Plans for new retirement apartments have been approved for the site and new owners Pegasus Life organised a meeting at the Falmouth Hotel on Monday to outline how the development is progressing.

Machinery has begun to pull down the walls, and neighbours raised several concerns at the meeting, with the secretary of the management committee of Seascapes apartment building leading the way.

She asked about an "infestation" of rats in the derelict site, saying "what's going to happen as you get deeper and deeper into the building, with rats coming out?"

She was told by Frank Smalley, the demolition director from Shield Environmental, that an agency such as Rentokil will be contacted to carry out a survey for vermin and deal with any problems. He added that workers had not seen any live rats in the hotel, and it was something that his workers took very seriously as it was a risk to thweir own health as well as to neighbours.

However, one resident said that the vermin lived in the drains and the basement, and had been seen.

She also asked how the end gable of the hotel would be removed, as curently machinery is reaching over the walls to pull them down, but there is not enough space between Seascapes and the site for that to happen. She added that residents were also concerned about material falling out of the site.

Mr Smalley said that the methodology for that section could be "reassessed", with work carried out from inside the hotel boundary and taking down the wall in smaller sections.

Residents also asked about heavy traffic travelling down De Pass Road and Cliff Road to the site and disrupting the lives of residents or putting off visitors. They were told the routes could be varied so there was not just a constant stream of traffic along one main route.

One request that received popular support was for the proposed name of the building to be changed from Fitzroy to something Cornish.

A resident at the meeting said: "A lot of hotels have been knocked down and... buildings given funny names like The Strand. A lot of Cornish names are disappearing.

"Could you change Fitzroy to something Cornish before it's too late? Something beginning with Tre, Pol or Pen, almost anything will do."

Spencer Neal of Keeble Brown, who organised the event, agreed to take the man's details and look into possible names.

The meeting also gave a timetable for work at the Madeira. Guy Barnett, the project manager from AECOM, said demolition would continue for "another couple of weeks", with building work beginning in March or April and the project expected to be completed around April 2018.