Braddan services cut to offset Roundhouse costs

The Roundhouse project has been spearheaded by Braddan Commissioners

A number of services, including road sweeping and hedge cutting, have been cut in Braddan to offset some of the need to increase rates, the local authority has said.

It comes after loan charges for the new community hub, the Roundhouse, led to the announcement of a 36% spike in rate demands for the forthcoming year.

The changes will see an average three-bedroom home pay an extra £69 a year from April.

Commissioners chairman Andrew Jessopp said a number of areas had been cut to "the bare minimum".

Road sweeping and hedge cutting services were among those to see cutbacks.

Mr Jessopp said: "We’ve also taken in-house certain services that we previously were contracting out, so that’s helped offset that increase."

The Roundhouse, which is due to be fully operational by Easter, has been hit with a number of delays and price rises due to external factors, Mr Jessopp said.

He said some of the additional costs now being faced were down to the Department of Health and Social Care's "decision to try and refuse access to the Roundhouse through the hospital estate roads".

Use of the roads within Noble's Hospital grounds is set to be banned from 4 March.

However, Mr Jessopp said the increase was much higher than originally anticipated.

The local authority borrowed a further £3.4m on top of its original £6m budget towards the end of last year, increasing loan repayment pressures, he said.

As a result of the project's delayed opening, "the income that we predicted in this financial year isn’t going to materialise", which the local authority would "need to make provision for", he said.

While the authority had seen the biggest percentage rise in rates across the island, Mr Jessopp said the fees remained lower than in other places.

He said, for the average domestic rate payer the rise would amount to about £1.60 a week.

"I’m not saying that’s insignificant or trivial to some people but we’re not putting it up by hundreds of pounds," he added.

There has been a call for a requisition meeting to be held in the parish to discuss why the project had hit rates to such an extent, but it has not yet been confirmed if that will take place.