Shop-keepers have forced a meeting with a council after they say a bungled road closure left them without customers.

Sittingbourne’s market traders are to move from the Forum car park into the town centre from next Friday.

But Swale council shut off the High Street today – a week early - and before an alternative access from Central Avenue was confirmed.

Mark Woods who runs Topps Jewellers at 57 High Street, said: "Fridays are normally one of our busiest days but it has been like a ghost town. The council is strangling the High Street. We are all up in arms.

"The council should have had everything in place before allowing this. They have put their running shoes on before they can even walk. They don’t appear to have a clue. We are spitting feathers.”

Hairdresser Richard Morgan, who runs Ricky’s Barbers Shop at 63 High Street, fumed: "My phone hasn't stopped ringing with customers complaining they can’t get into the High Street. Many are disabled and need to drive to the shop.”

Within an hour, he had put together a petition signed by more than 40 other shop owners, including banks, calling for the road closure to be reversed.

He said: "I called the council and was told Central Avenue was going to become two-way in the near future but it was out of their hands and there was nothing they could do.

"This just isn’t good enough. Some of these shops will go broke before that happens. The council has gone back on its promise.”

The top of the high street is to be a traffic-free zone on Fridays and Saturdays from January 12 between 7am and 5pm.

It is the first part of a plan to build a £57 million leisure quarter in the middle of the town including a cinema and restaurants.

Council spokesman Leona Ellis said: "Two out of three elements of the Road Traffic Order have now been completed.

"The third element, which relates to Central Avenue and the junction with the High Street, currently remains outstanding. This is to ensure safety concerns that have been raised recently are fully addressed."

She added: "A meeting will be held in Swale House on Tuesday (January 9) at 5.30pm. We welcome retailers who may have concerns."

Mr Morgan said: "Between 12 and 15 traders have already said they are going. It could be quite heated.

"The council promised us nothing would happen until we had been told, and then this happens. It has been one lie after another."