Residents living near the proposed Holmethorpe relief road fear time is running out for transport bosses to amend controversial traffic orders including the closure of a well-used through-road.

The decision has been deferred for two months, while a second traffic safety audit is done, but residents fear pressure from developer Tapton Estates – signed up to build 400 houses and the relief road – will result in closure orders being rushed through.

They are especially concerned about the closure of Frenches Road, a useful through route between Redhill and Merstham.

Gerald and Tracey Hulf, who live off Frenches Road in Elmwood Road, are two of hundreds who have signed petitions demanding the rethink.

Mr Hulf said: "No-one has been able to convince us that closing Frenches Road is necessary, except that they have been waiting for it for 15 years.

"We agree we need the relief road, but it's got to relieve the existing residential roads or what's the point in having it?"

The Hulfs say the borough council was wrong to sell off land around the crucial junction of the relief road with Frenches Road before the orders were agreed.

Planners argue Frenches Road cannot remain open, because high traffic volumes from the new estate would flood an unsafe junction, and flexibility on its size is limited because land sales have already taken place.

A spokesman for Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, which is behind the much-anticipated relief road development, said the outcome of the local transport committee meeting, on September 15, could change the timetable significantly.

The spokesman said: "If they make a decision that they are not going to close the road then that will have great implications on the development and we'd have to look at the whole traffic plan."

This would mean looking at ways of improving the junction in question, including the possibility of making a compulsory purchase order.