Vehicles face ban from driving to new Roundhouse

Work on the Roundhouse began in 2021

Vehicles could be banned from the roads up to a new community centre just weeks before it is due to open.

Roads on the Noble's Hospital estate are used to get to the Roundhouse in Braddan, on the east of the Isle of Man.

But the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has given a 28-day warning that the roads should no longer be used.

Braddan Commissioners chairman Andrew Jessopp described it as "a big headache".

He said it contradicted previous commitments from the department.

A letter from the health minister in 2016, Howard Quayle, supported the plans for the project confirming that "access to the site will be via the hospital grounds".

Mr Jessopp said the commissioners had "relied on that", after planning permission for a second entrance was turned down in 2016.

Andrew Jessopp said the local authority had done everything Manx Care asked

The authority then abandoned plans for a second entrance via Ballaoates Road "on that basis", he said.

The DHSC wrote to the commissioners this week to say "the department is not satisfied that sufficient measures have been, or could be, put in place to address the risks identified by Manx Care".

It added it would "not be permitting use of the private roads within the hospital estate to access the Roundhouse".

The department said a second entrance was "the most appropriate way forward" and it would "progress the work" for the local authority to get land "for a dedicated access road at less than market value".

It said it was "committed to working constructively... to build the new access road".