SHOP owners and residents are up in arms because they have just found out an historic street in the heart of the city will be closed at the weekend.

The road along Friar Street will be closed so a crane can shift steel into an empty unit of wasteland - which sits in between Perfections and Lynne Craig - that will eventually be used to build what is believed to be a new café.

The two-day street closure, which starts at 10.30am on Saturday, will affect residents and business between Vue cinema and the junction of Union Street, which in turn will become a two-way street for diversions while the work takes place.

Worcestershire County Council is now looking at what action to take because one of the conditions allowing Amber Projects Management Limited to carry out the work was just to give businesses in the area "suitable advance notice".

However, Anne Wild, owner of Perfections in Friar Street, said nobody has been given any notice of the work until now. "Apparently a notice was put in the paper in the middle of March but who reads those? It's commercial suicide to do this on a Saturday," she said. "It's going to be detrimental to all of our businesses."

Becky Sutcliffe, owner of Lynne Craig, also in Friar Street, said she is worried how it will affect the business she took over just six weeks ago. "It's been wet again this week and with this happening on a Saturday, when we were hoping to make up the figures, is not fair really," she said. "It's the lack of communication and lack of commercial sense that frustrates me."

Judy Owen, owner of organic beauty product shop You, agreed and said none of the businesses had a problem with the development, just the timing. Mike Paine, who lives in Friar Street, said he was mainly worried about the noise.

"I didn't know anything about this until I saw a sign pinned onto a board down by Union Street," he said. "It's quite vague and doesn't say what they're doing and when."

Another resident, Brett Hollis, said: "This is going to massively inconvenience us, the residents." A Worcestershire County Council spokesman said it had no legal reason to stop the work taking place even if it wanted to, but will now look to take action against Amber Projects Management Limited if it is found to have breached the condition.

Nobody from Amber Projects Management Limited was available for comment.