A politician who resorted to planting daffodils in potholes to highlight the poor state of a street in her constituency has been rewarded for her efforts as patching now appears to be underway.

Michelle Haywood, MHK for Rushen, fulfilled the promise she made to Tynwald last month in a bid to highlight the deepest and widest gulfs currently littering Port St Mary’s High Street.

She spent her Saturday, along with help from local residents, on a planting spree, filling in the road gaps using a bit of soil and some brightly coloured daffodils.

Insistent that she will continue drawing attention to the ‘disastrous state of this road’, the Department of Infrastructure have responded.

In an update on Facebook, Dr Haywood shared a photo with the caption ‘pot hole patching underway on Port St Mary High Street’.

However added that while it’s good news, more work needs doing. She continued: ‘This is a temporary solution to some of the very worst holes, and doesn’t take away from the need to get the road replacement scheme approved and funded, but it might delay me buying geraniums for the summer planting.

‘I’ve had productive discussions with the DoI Minister today and I want to thank him for working to get a long term solution in play.’

Although now mostly residential, Port St Mary’s High Street is extensively patched, badly potholed and failing in a number of places. The road is also used as a through route for traffic and buses from the harbour. A £400,000 scheme to revamp the road was rejected last year – by the same department that proposed it.

The highway services division of the Department of Infrastructure (DOI) put together a business case for the reconstruction of High Street in July 2021.

But last year Port St Mary Commissioners submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to find out why the project had not been brought forward.

In its response, the DoI said the business case was not supported by the department and so not submitted to the Treasury for consideration.

Commissioners were subsequently informed, however, that it had been given the go-ahead by the department and submitted for Treasury approval.

The Port St Mary High Street scheme has now been listed in the Budget Pink Book for ‘design and feasibility’.

The proposed facelift for the high street is one of 14 Department of Infrastructure schemes listed in the Pink Book that it says are expected to be presented for consideration within the revised design and feasibility process.