Work to prepare a new access route leading to a £10m leisure centre on the Isle of Man is now underway.

The news was confirmed by Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Minister Lawrie Hooper during the House of Keys sitting on Tuesday.

A patch of land between Ballaoates Road and the car park at the new Roundhouse facility in Braddan has been cleared of shrubs, bracken, and overgrowth to make way for the new access road by staff from Braddan Commissioners.

However, it remains unclear who will take on the next stage of the work as the row between the government’s DHSC and the Commissioners over access to the site rumbles on.

A spokesperson for the Commissioners said that unless the new access road is paid for by central government, Roundhouse staff and customers will continue to use the current route through the grounds of Noble’s Hospital to access the site.

But the government says its position hasn’t changed and is demanding Braddan Commissioners build the access road and foot the bill.

History

Work to build the Roundhouse started in June 2021.

Braddan Commissioners had planned to build a new access road leading to the facility; however, that scheme was eventually ditched.

During the planning phase of the project, Braddan Commissioners submitted a copy of a letter to the Planning Committee from the then DHSC Minister Howard Quayle in August 2016 which apparently granted staff and customers access to the facility via the hospital grounds.

Mr. Quayle said in that letter that the ‘department (DHSC) fully supports this [Roundhouse] proposal without reservation’.

But on December 19 last year, Braddan Commissioners said it was informed of a ‘last-minute decision’ by the DHSC to refuse vehicle access to the facility.

In February this year, DHSC issued a 28-day notice to commissioners which informed them of plans to restrict vehicle access to the Roundhouse site.

The DHSC has since placed signs on the Ballaoates Road informing drivers of ‘no vehicular access’ to the Roundhouse.

‘Mess’

In a recently published Freedom of Information response (3715605), Minister for the DHSC Lawrie Hooper said he was ‘willing to help Braddan out of the mess they’ve created for themselves [regarding the Roundhouse development] but this cannot come at the expense of public safety or the taxpayer’.

A spokesperson for Braddan Commissioners said the authority took ‘issue with the Minister continually claiming [they] are in a mess of their own making.’

The statement said that Commissioners were only in the ‘alleged “mess”’ due to the DHSC’s decision to renege on a lawful decision to allow the public the right to use the hospital estate’s roads to access the Roundhouse.