Crumbling High Street Takes First Steps Towards Improvements

A village high street has been closed for up to two week for site investigations ahead of a long-awaited reconstruction of the crumbling carriageway.

The scheme itself, in Port St Mary, is due to begin in May next year and take 30 weeks to complete.

A ground penetrating radar survey was carried out in September to identify the location of underground services and cellar boundaries.

On Tuesday this week, the road was shut again to allow excavation work to assess ground conditions and corroborate the information gleaned in the radar survey.

The village’s High Street is widely regarded as being one of the worst roads in the island.

It is extensively patched, badly potholed and failing in a number of places.

Before being appointed Infrastructure Minister, Rushen MHK Dr Michelle Haywood planted daffodils in the potholes in protest at the road’s condition.

The High Street reconstruction scheme is listed in the Budget Pink Book for ‘design and feasibility’.

Following the preparation of tender documents, contractors will be invited to bid for the works.

Formal approval by Treasury to proceed is expected to be signed off by the end of April before the works start in mid-May.

They are due to be complete by December.

It’s been a long time getting to this stage.

A previous £400,000 scheme to revamp the road was rejected in 2023.

The highway services division had put together a business case for the reconstruction in July 2021 but this was not supported by the Department of Infrastructure and so not submitted to the Treasury for consideration.

Last year, Dr Haywood’s predecessor at Infrastructure Minister, Tim Crookall, said work to renovate the High Street had been put on hold due to a lack of sufficient funding.

He said site investigations and a detailed design could not be progressed until appropriate funding could be allocated.