A month after asking Cornwall Council what is happening about a wall that collapsed in Helston more than three years ago, it has yet to respond.

The Helston Packet first contacted the council on January 8, asking for the latest situation regarding the wall that fell onto the pavement in Godolphin Road back in late 2015.

Yet five weeks on and the council still has not come back with an answer.

No one has come out to take responsibility for the damage, which has left a large section of the pavement covered in rubble bags, to prevent any further slippage, making it difficult to pass and an eyesore in a conservation area.

It has resulted in an agonising stalemate for the neighbouring residents who are forced to look out onto the destruction day in, day out.

The wait for something to be done has become so ridiculous that at the start of this year an unknown person actually decorated the rubble bags with balloons and a sign simply stating "Three years and counting", as a visual reminder of how long the problem has gone on for.

It was caused when 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.

The narrowing of the pavement has caused some problems for people trying to negotiate their way past, with concerns raised previously about the safety of a a visually impaired resident of Helston who regularly walks into town via that pavement. While the pathway can be navigated by one person at a time, it is not so easy for someone with sight loss.

An email sent from Cormac as far back as October 2017, which was read out at a planning meeting of Helston Town Council, stated there was a "distinct possibility" that any work on the wall could cause further collapse and that technical approval would be needed to proceed; at that time no design had been submitted by the owner for approval.

It was added that the issue had been "chased vociferously and ultimatums have been given to the owner of the wall" by Cormac and that the matter, at that time, had been passed to Cormac's Cornwall Council counterparts, for advice on how to proceed or take enforcement.

Just before Christmas, Helston's deputy town clerk Pamela Lavelle was given authority by the town's councillors to contact the relevant departments at County Hall and "demand the reinstatement of the collapsed wall and that the costs be recharged to the property owners."