OWNERS of two city nightclubs fear they will be forced to close after developers blocked their fire escape, slashing the number of customers they can safely hold.

Kandi and The Box, formerly The Music Box, which share a building on Catherine Street are in dispute with developers of a nearby apartment block.

Club owners Alex Nettle and Robert Morris said fire marshals had told them to reduce their overall capacity from more than 500 people to 120 after Acorn Property Group set up a building site across a fire exit route the clubs have been using for more than 20 years.

The firm is building 16 apartments in the former HPI office building on the corner of Catherine Street and New Street.

Mr Nettle said the developers had refused him access, despite allowing neighbouring Silverthorne Opticians an emergency exit route.

“If they had given us a one-metre access, all the local businesses would have been able to carry on. We don’t need much room but we need to be able to get out,” he said.

The restricted capacity means the venues have been opening on alternate weeks.

“Door staff and bar staff are frustrated they are working one weekend and not the other, but we can’t open two venues to only be allowed 50 people in each,” said Mr Nettle.

The losses so far have been in the thousands, and Mr Nettle said the clubs would be forced to close if the current situation continued, adding: “We are fairly close to that point anyway”.

The owners fear the developers may be deliberately restricting access to force them to close.

Mr Nettle said: “If they can get rid of the two nightclubs next door, the resale prices on their flats will go up.”

And he said closing the clubs, including The Box as one of the city’s only late-night live music venues, would be “a big loss to Salisbury”.

Babylon School of English, in New Street, has also used the land as an established right of way for more than 50 years.

Principal Julian Lewis said the school had “no objection” to the development but that Acorn was being “totally unreasonable”.

He said the firm was putting students in danger by leaving them with only one exit route from the building.

Acorn declined to comment.