Boscawen Street and Lemon Street set for Truro shake-up

Shoppers walking down Boscawen Street this autumn are going to be sharing the pavement with barriers, bollards and a fair bit of dust. From next month, two of Truro’s best known streets go under the cone as contractors dig into the granite that has carried the city’s traffic, market stalls and Remembrance Sunday parade for generations.

What’s happening on Boscawen Street and Lemon Street

Cornwall Council and its highways contractor CORMAC (CORMAC) are carrying out a highway and footway improvement scheme across Truro city centre, running from Monday 7 September to Friday 6 November 2026. On Boscawen Street, crews will lift, clean and relay sections of granite setts at six locations where repairs are needed. Around the corner on Lower Lemon Street, granite paving will be repaired outside Mannings Hotel and Michael Spiers, and on the opposite side of the road, with the paving lifted, the foundations rebuilt where needed, and the granite reset.

Roseland and Truro Community Area Partnership, who shared details of the scheme on Facebook, said the works will also include a double ramp replacement outside Hall for Cornwall, alongside refurbishment of other existing cast iron ramps elsewhere on the street.

Why the work is needed now

Cornwall Council says the repairs are part of an ongoing programme of improvements in areas of the city centre that have not previously been repaired. Because of city centre events, busy trading periods and the specialist nature of the work, there is only a limited window each year when jobs like this can actually be carried out. Doing the Boscawen Street and Lower Lemon Street repairs at the same time is meant to cut the overall length of the disruption rather than running two separate closures back to back. The council is aiming to have everything finished before the Remembrance Sunday parade and the run of events leading into Christmas.

📷Credit: Cornwall Council

Road closures and how long they’ll last

Getting the new granite to bed in and cure properly means the road closures and traffic management have to stay in place around the clock, seven days a week, until each job is finished. Boscawen Street will be fully closed with give and take traffic arrangements while the setts are lifted and relaid, and a separate closure covers Lower Lemon Street while the footway repairs go in.

Barrier systems will be used to keep pedestrians safely away from the works, and both bus companies and the emergency services have been told about the closures so they can plan alternative arrangements where needed.

Diversions and getting around Truro

Diversion signs will go up at major junctions on the key routes before each closure begins. Cornwall Council has published separate diversion routes for the Boscawen Street closure and the Lower Lemon Street closure, both signed away from the working areas shown on the closure maps below.

📷Credit: Cornwall Council

For live updates on roadworks and closures anywhere in Cornwall, the council points people to one.network. CORMAC also runs a programming page showing what work is planned in each area.

Got a problem, or want to know more

Anyone with a question about the scheme can email [email protected], or report a problem with a road, highway or footway at cornwall.gov.uk/reportroad. Anything that’s a threat to public safety should go straight to Cornwall Council on 0300 1234 222, a 24-hour line.

Cornwall Council says the trading calendar and the city centre’s events programme leave only a narrow window each year for work like this, which is why sections of Boscawen Street’s granite setts have had to wait their turn for repair.

📷Credit: Cornwall Council