Vandals may have had an effect on a study aimed at improving the flow of traffic through Liskeard after they wrecked roadside equipment installed in the town.

Traffic counters, consisting of pneumatic tubes stretched across the road and connected to recording devices, have been installed at a variety of locations around the town, but vandals recently ripped up the tubes and damaged the device located at Lake Lane.

Cornwall Council commissioned the count to record traffic flows for a period of one week up until today.

A journey time survey was also to be conducted on main routes through the town on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

A spokesman for County Hall said the aim of the project was to create a traffic model for Liskeard. 'This will then be used to determine any problems which may develop with future traffic growth in the town and to test possible measures which could be used to mitigate against these problems,' said the spokesman.

'The equipment is worth several hundred pounds and while vandalism of this sort is not common, it may well have an impact on the exercise,' he added.