The ongoing saga between the Department of Health and Social Care and Braddan Commissioners over access to the Roundhouse is rumbling on.
In a recently published Freedom of Information response (3715605) Minister for the DHSC Lawrie Hooper accused the authority of a ‘willingness to peddle misrepresentations’ and said ‘it is becoming increasingly apparent they are acting in bad faith’.
He added that he is ‘willing to help Braddan out of the mess they’ve created for themselves but this cannot come at the expense of public safety or the taxpayer’.
In response to the Minister’s comments, Braddan Commissioners said it ‘totally refutes these allegations’ and added that ‘if anyone is acting in bad faith and with malice, it’s the Minister’.
In February this year the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) issued a 28-day notice to the commissioners that restricts vehicle access to the £10 million leisure centre.
The facility, which includes a cafe, playground, sports hall, nursery and health facilities, is £3.4 million over budget and was originally meant to be open and completed in August 2023.
Work on the scheme started in June 2021 and parts of the facility are still being constructed and others only recently opened.
Braddan Commissioners originally planned to build an access road to the facility while the centre was being built.
However, that road was eventually ditched and during the planning phase of the project, Braddan Commissioners provided a copy of a letter to the Planning Committee from the then Department of Health and Social Care Minister Howard Quayle in August 2016 granting customers access to the facility via the hospital grounds.
Mr Quayle said in the letter that the ‘department (DHSC) fully supports this proposal without reservation’. The commissioners still believe this is enough to allow access through the hospital grounds.
On December 19 last year, the local authority said it was ‘shocked’ by a ‘last minute decision’ by the DHSC’s decision to refuse vehicle access to the facility.
While signage is currently on the Ballaoates Road stating vehicle access is not allowed to the Roundhouse, vehicles are still using the car park.
In the response from Braddan Commissioners, written by Chairman Andrew Jessopp, it said the authority ‘have an issue with the Minister continually claiming the Commissioners are in a mess of their own making and could have been avoided it by building the new access road’.
It continued to say that the ‘Commissioners are only in the alleged “mess” due to the Department reneging on what the Commissioners, and a former Health Minister, maintain was a lawful decision to allow the public the right to use the hospital estate roads to access the Roundhouse.’
The statement said the Minister Hooper ‘clearly has his own agenda to try and force the Commissioners to build a new access’ and said ‘unless the cost of building the new access is provided by central government, they will continue to use the access agreed in 2016’.
The DHSC say their position is unchanged and the Braddan Commissioners statement came as a surprise.
They added that they’ve contacted the authority to determine whether their position on the new access road has differed following the statement.
In the House of Keys tomorrow (Tuesday) MHK for Douglas Central, Mr Thomas, is asking the Minister for Health and Social Care Lawrie Hooper: ‘What Council of Ministers policy on access to Braddan Roundhouse is and what legal and financial constraints prevent full opening of this facility?’