Police wearing helmets and fluorescent vests have dismantled barricades erected by pro-democracy demonstrators near the main protest site in Hong Kong.

Dozens of officers were seen cutting ties used to bind together metal fences, signs, wooden pallets and recycling boxes that protesters had assembled to block traffic through Admiralty, a main thoroughfare in Hong Kong.

There was no sign of resistance as officers loaded the barricades onto waiting trucks. Earlier, police warned protesters they were going to move in after some were seen reinforcing barriers with bamboo poles and cement.

The cleared road, which is now open to traffic, runs adjacent to the highway where pro-democracy campaigners have camped out for more than two weeks as they push the government to change the way elections will be run in 2017.

On Monday, scuffles broke out as a group of protest opponents rushed the site and tried to pull down the barricades. They could be heard yelling at protesters, accusing them of damaging their livelihoods.

Police intervened by forming a human chain to keep the two sides apart. Eventually the protest opponents retreated.

At the peak of the protests, which started in late September, tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded onto the streets demanding a greater say in how the city is run.

Protesters have been guarding barricades erected at the protest sites, and for many nights slept in the open air on bitumen before the arrival of reinforcements with tents on the weekend.

Traffic in the other parts of the city has been clogged due to road closures, bus and tram cancellations and the need for cars to drive around the protest sites. Taxi drivers say their takings are down, and businesses have claimed the protests have cost them income.

While protest numbers dwindled towards the end of last week, they started building again over the weekend when protest leaders called for reinforcements after the government called off talks planned for Friday.

(CNN)