Despairing residents are prepared to carry out a sit down protest in one of Helston’s streets as a last resort over fears of a “disaster waiting to happen.”

It is over the continuing blockage of a stretch of pavement in Godolphin Road, which some fear will result in a fatality before any action is taken.

The pavement has been barely passable ever since the wall at the bottom of one of the properties in Sanctuary Lane, which sits above Godolphin Road, started to fall away, bringing earth and vegetation down with it into the pavement, almost two years ago.

Large bags of rubble have been placed at the bottom of the wall, to prevent any further slippage, and it has remained in this set up ever since.

Town councillor Ronnie Williams said it had now reached a point where people living on the street had vowed to take action themselves, even offering to carry out a two-day protest on the pavement.

He asked a meeting of the town council last week: “Would it help the case to make a 24 or 48 hour protest up there? These people take it seriously. What I’ve said is, don’t do anything yet. But it could well happen.”

Mr Williams said the pathway could just about be navigated by one person at a time, but there were particular concerns over a visually impaired resident of Helston who regularly walked into town via that pavement.

He said he had been told by neighbouring residents: “When it comes to that area, they can see a disaster waiting to happen. He copes with it well until he tries to get out of someone’s way. If he was to fall in the road, with the speed of cars coming up there, the likelihood is he would be killed.”

Mr Williams urged Helston’s three Cornwall councillors, John Martin, Mike Thomas and Andrew Wallis, to come together and push for a solution.

Earlier that same evening, when the town council’s planning committee met, Mr Martin, who is also chairman of that committee, proposed that members contact the enforcement team at Cornwall Council to “insist very strongly, on behalf of the residents” that action be taken.

He also read out an email from Cormac's assistant highways and environment manager for the west, Rupert Spencer, who wrote: "The issue has been chased vociferously and ultimatums have been given to the owner of the wall.

"There was once again a failure to respond from the owner in a timely fashion, until very recently when the owner asked for consent for street works to repair the damage.

"However, as I had previously discussed in detail with him, the complexity is that a structure of that size in such close proximity to the highway requires the designs for the works to undergo the process of technical approval in order for them to meet the scrutiny and criteria required. Without this consent there is distinct possibility that the process of undertaking the works could cause further collapse, or that the works undertaken would not be capable of withstanding the loading from the amount of material that is being retained, once again with the potential for further collapse.

"There is also significant potential for corresponding detrimental effects on adjacent properties, which must be protected."

Mr Spencer said that as far as he was aware, at that time there had been no design submitted for approval and the matter had been passed to Cormac's Cornwall Council counterparts, for advice on how to proceed or take enforcement.