The battle between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Braddan Commissioners over the Roundhouse access has taken a further turn following the release of an FOI.
In the recently published FOI response (3715605) DHSC Minister Lawrie Hooper MHK accuses the Commissioners of a ‘willingness to peddle misrepresentations’ and ‘acting in bad faith’.
Braddan Commissioners say it totally refute the allegations and in doing so state that if anyone is ‘ willingly peddling misrepresentations’ and acting in ‘bad faith’ it is the Minister, and to the extent that it is now considered to be ‘with malice’.
Braddan Commissioners
The local authority have said: “It would seem Minister Hooper continues to peddle the misrepresentation that the Commissioners knew since 2022 they had to build a new access road to their Roundhouse development.
“Minister Hooper may wish this to be true, and perhaps thinks that by repeating it often enough it will become generally thought to be true.”
It says that ‘the reality is the Commissioners were not formally made aware until 19 December 2023 that the DHSC no longer supported the use of the hospital estate roads as a means of vehicular access to the Roundhouse, and it was not until 5 February 2024 the Commissioners were informed the department intended to take action to restrict vehicle access to the Roundhouse via the hospital estate roads’.
Department of Health
According to Braddan Commissioners, that despite repeated requests to the department asking them to provide written evidence that the Commissioners had been informed earlier than 19 December 2023, to date no such evidence has been produced.
It says that to date, the department has yet to provide the commissioners with copies of any of the reports or risk assessments that were purportedly relied upon by the department when making their decisions to send the letters of the 19 December 2023 or 5 February 2024.
The Commissioners have no issue in acknowledging that in December 2021 Minister Hooper expressed a ‘preference’ for the Roundhouse to have its own access.
It says ‘but that was as far as it went, and at no time before December 2023 did he state it would be a case of a new access or no access’.
However, the Commissioners do have an issue with the Minister continually claiming the Commissioners are in a mess of their own making and could have avoided it by building the new access road.
‘Mess’
The Commissioners say it is only in the alleged ‘mess’ due to the department ‘reneging on what the Commissioners, and a former Health Minister, maintain was a lawful decision to allow the public the right to use the hospital estate roads to access the Roundhouse’.
The Commissioners believe that the Health Minister has ‘his own agenda to try and force the Commissioners to build a new access, totally at the cost of the ratepayers, whether we need to or not’.
The FOI revealed email exchanges between the Minister and officers of Manx Care that, according to Braddan Commissioners, appears to show the officers recommending to the department they accept the traffic mitigation measures proposed by the Commissioners.
It says that this however, ‘doesn’t appear to have found favour with the Minister who clearly has his own agenda to try and force the Commissioners to build a new access, totally at the cost of the ratepayers, whether we need to or not’.
The Commissioners remain steadfast that they, and the general public, have a right to use the hospital estate roads to access the Roundhouse, and unless the cost of building the new access is provided by central government, they will continue to use the access agreed in 2016.
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