TRADE has been sluggish in a village near Droitwich as the busy bridge over the River Severn closed for repair work this week.

Vital repair work started on the Holt Fleet bridge near Ombersley on Monday and, despite prior notice, was met with discontent by traders.

Work is expected to take three weeks and the road will be closed from the A449 island in Ombersley right through to the village of Holt Fleet, but will be open for pedestrians.

Shop assistant, Vicky Owens from the Holt Heath Spar store revealed: "We rely mainly on passing trade and it has been very quiet in the last couple of days. There is talk we may have our hours cut now."

The Crown & Sandys, Hadley Bowling Green and Everton's delicatessen, are all owned by Richard Everton. He was unavailable to comment but his accountant, Dave Eccleston admitted that trade appeared to be slower.

Mr Eccleston, who oversees the operations for the shop, said: "I live in St John's, Worcester and it took me an hour and a half to get into work this morning for a 12-mile journey. I think it will get more chaotic as the weeks go on. Luckily, many of the workforce here live locally but one of the girls lives in Callow End and has decided to work at another site while the repairs are going on.

"As for the Crown & Sandys, we are holding our breath and will be able to compare takings later in the week. Time alone will tell."

The work, set to cost around £420,000, will include waterproofing and repairing the carriageway.

Diversion signs have been placed on the A456 before Newnham Bridge for traffic heading towards Bromsgrove and Droitwich.

Network control manager for Worcestershire County Council's Highways Department, Jon Fraser, claimed that the first day had gone well and there were no particular problems.

He added: "As you might expect, Ombersley is quite quiet but traffic elsewhere on Tuesday was quite heavy. It was not grid-locked in Worcester but the traffic was running very slowly."

He recommended people staggered journey times to avoid heavy delays.