Dartmouth's Lower Street traders, who claim their businesses have badly clobbered by the town's three-month ferry closure, are appealing for the town centre area to be declared a 'special action' zone.

Now South Hams Council is looking at putting up new signs telling visitors that the shopping street is still open for business.

Business forum chairman Paul Reach warned local councillors had been told the latest date for the reopening the Lower ferry operation was May 10 – more than a month behind schedule.

And he said: 'Lower Street has been hit very hard since the closure of the Lower Ferry. The footfall has been very low and this has come on top of being hit by the fire in Fairfax Place.'

And he asked town councillors: 'Can you assist? One of the traders I spoke to was literally in tears. This is a quite serious situation.'

He asked for the council to take 'special action' to help the traders – as they had done in the wake of the 2010 fire which gutted shops, offices and flats in Fairfax Place and left roads near Lower Street closed to traffic.

Mr Reach made his appeal on Monday this week and two days later, he revealed the district council had agreed to come up with the 'business as usual' signs for Lower Street.

'The footfall in Lower Street is dramatically reduced. I am going to talk to the businesses to see if they agree if the signs would help and where they should be put. This is an area that is not as vibrant as it was because of the ferry closure.'

The £1m scheme to rebuild the ferry slipways at Dartmouth and Kingswear started in January and was supposed to have been completed in time for Easter.

Problems with piling work at Kingswear helped delay the project and South Hams Council put the opening date back to late April.

Now, Mr Reach claims, the date has been put at May 10 – which is the day the town's annual three-day music festival begins.

He warned it was 'critical' that the Lower Ferry was back in action for the Dart Music Festival, which attracts thousands of visitors to the town for scores of free music concerts.

He also pointed out that while the residents living around the slipway project were being kept well informed about the project, nearby businesses appeared to have been ignored.

'The businesses in Lower Street are complaining that they are not being kept informed,' he said. 'The information they are getting is coming from some of the workers on the site.'