FIVE Medway shopkeepers are fighting for their livelihoods in the High Court this week.

The Rainham Shopping Centre traders are battling a planned injunction by their landlords to get them out.

Fearing they would lose trade, the businesses have refused to budge after being told they must move out for six months for anti-subsidence work.

Barry Abbott, boss of Barry's Fruiterers, said: "We are going to fight it. We were offered no compensation to move, nor any alternative accommodation."

Beverley Hallam, of Xpressions hairdressers, said: "We were not given enough notice to find alternative premises.

"We should also not be out for so long. The work should be done, but on a rolling programme."

Sheridan Stock, boss of Rainham Health Food Centre, said: "We called in our own subsidence experts and they confirmed length of the vacancy period was too long. All it needed was a few weeks."

Landlords, City Sites of Glasgow, are going to the High Court this week to seek an injunction to remove the shopkeepers.

The injunction is also against Price Carver Discount Stores Ltd, which owns Quidsaver and Graham Harrison of Bookmark.

The row stretches back to last March when nine traders, all sharing the same building, were given notice to quit so that underpinning work could be done.

The traders, expect to shut for the six months of work or find other premises, complained they could lose thousands of pounds of takings.

The six weeks' notice was stretched to 10, ending on June 1 and while four shopkeepers moved out the five now facing the court action stayed.

City Sites believed that insurance could cover profit loss while the work was done.

The company was unavailable for comment.