Braddan Commissioners would like to borrow another £3,400,000 to complete their Braddan Roundhouse Leisure Centre project for which they have already borrowed £6million.
In order not to upset their residential ratepayers (and voters?) they propose to load this extra cost onto business ratepayers in Braddan by way of a ‘special rate’.
I have run a manufacturing business in Union Mills for the last 30 years which occupies two industrial units there.
I can tell you the business rate burden is already quite high enough without a massive increase from this special rate.
Business ratepayers have no vote and no democratic input into this scheme which I regard as a vanity project which is neither needed nor affordable.
A simple hall with a large car park would have been all that was needed.
I predict this ‘leisure centre’ will become an annual charge on all Braddan ratepayers and a white elephant.
It is after all only a mile and a half from the far better and more extensive facilities at the NSC.
I hope it will not become Braddan’s Liverpool landing stage.
I urge business ratepayers in Braddan to use such influence as they may have to get this special rate rejected, it will need government approval which should be withheld considering the damage it will do to business in Braddan.
If the project must be finished at a cost of £9.4million (so far!) then at least the residents of Braddan on whose behalf it is being built should foot the bill not have it transferred to business people who did not want it, have no use for it and were never consulted in the first place.
Name and address supplied
This letter was first published in the Isle of Man Examiner of August 8.
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