AN ANIMAL charity will be closed for several hours during the Olympic cycling test event on Sunday (August 14).

The Wildlife Aid Foundation's hospital in Leatherhead will be closed to new patient admissions between 6.45am and 2.15pm.

The charity also says it will be unable to respond to emergency calls between 9am and 2.15pm because of road closures for the London to Surrey Cycle Classic. 

Charity director Simon Cowell MBE said: "The Wildlife Aid Foundation will have a skeleton staff on duty this Sunday to ensure that our current patients are properly looked after, but we will be unable to take in new patients or respond to callouts during the hours of the road closure.

"This is the first time in 30 years that we have had to shut the doors of our Leatherhead wildlife hospital to new patients. The hospital is usually open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day for emergencies, but despite our best efforts to work around the constraints imposed by the road race we have been unable to find a way to ensure 'business as usual'.

"We are therefore urging people not to try to bring in injured animals between 6.45am and 2.15pm on Sunday as there will no public access at all to the hospital during those times. We need to get this message out as widely as possible.

"We will have a limited ambulance service up to 9am, thanks to special access arrangements negotiated with Surrey County Council – but regrettably 9am is the cut-off on this and our ambulances will not be able to respond to callouts after that."