A 28 day notice has been issued to Braddan Commissioners by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) over vehicle access to its new community centre.
The local authority said that access has always been through hospital grounds, but when health minister Lawrie Hooper started, he said a new access road should’ve been built.
This plan was previously refused by Highways at the Department of Infrastructure, but the commissioners are now facing a ban on vehicles, that aren’t staff or contractors.
It says the board had discussion with the DHSC over a ‘legal agreement’ for land for this new access road to be built – a cost of £60,000 to the government.
However in December last year, the department said they weren’t ‘satisfied’ that enough measures had been taken to keep the hospital roads clear.
Chair Andrew Jessopp says it should be down to the DHSC to prove hospital roads are not a public right of way.
Mr Jessopp said during a press conference, that the authority is losing out on roughly £1000 a day due to not being able to issue a lease to its tenants.
He confirmed that civil, legal action could be taken if these are handed out and there are still problems with the site.
Originally, the local authority had ‘estimated’ a 50 pence increase on the rates but due to the ‘triple whammy’ of Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine on top of the problems with the DHSC, it had to go up by more than a pound.
DHSC
In response the Department of Health and Social Care says while it is supportive of the project it will not compromise the safety of service users and access for emergency services.
It adds shared use of the current roads is not suitable and, from 4 March, no vehicular access to the site will be permitted.
In a statement it says: “The safety of people using the hospital site and the smooth operation of the hospital is the departments primary concern.
“In 2016 planning permission was originally granted which included access to the site via the existing private roads.
“Several years have passed and in early 2022 it was flagged by the department that access via that route would no longer be suitable due to the increased traffic.
“In 2023 a new planning application for a dedicated access road was submitted and approved in May.
“We have since worked constructively with the commissioners and prioritised the conveying of land from the department to the commissioners – at less than market value – for the construction of a dedicated road.
“In late 2023 the commissioners informed the department that they did not intend to proceed with this dedicated access due to financial constraints.
“They proposed some safety measures to try and address the concerns raised about using the existing roads.
“These measures were reviewed and were not considered rigorous enough to provide proper safeguards or alleviate issues.”
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