Potential for Legal Action over Landslip

There is potential for legal action to be taken over the recent landslip in Laxey.

Residents affected by the situation voiced their concerns at an ‘extraordinary’ meeting held by Garff commissioners last night.

The commissioners confirmed that there is a ‘potential’ for some form of legal action, with the health and safety officer Ian Older, saying it could be ‘criminal or civil’.

Residents’ concerns were listened to and acknowledged by the commissioners, however those who live next door to one of the evacuated homes, say they were ‘not checked on by anybody’.

Another resident said she thinks the ‘situation’ will go on for a long time, adding: ‘I’m really concerned because it’s something that was obviously going to happen. When a five-year-old child looks and says “I wouldn’t like to live there, Nana, because it’s all going to collapse”.

‘I just feel so sorry for the people that have had to move out and it’s not going to end here. Probably this weekend, lots of flooding. We’re going a lose more again. Who else is going to have to move out of their houses.’

There were strong words of warning in the meeting from vice chair Marinda Fargher who said they want to avoid ‘speculation’ to avoid prejudicing any legal proceedings that might occur.

Ms Fargher says the commissioners’ are ‘working hard’ with government departments to sort out the situation.

She said: ‘We saw what had happened on the promenade on Saturday and then thinking about it, we thought on Monday “we’ve got to do something” and all we can do is have an extra public meeting because we wouldn’t normally be meeting for a fortnight. That gives the chance for all the commissioners to raise their concerns for the public to come along and to hear what we’re doing or what we can do.

‘Tonight, I think it was fairly obvious that the way forward isn’t straightforward. We do need to work with government. We have to decide what’s government role, what the commissioners’ role is.

‘He’s going to liaise now on our behalf with government to do exactly that and. The safety of that landslip is very, very important, that area of the promenade, the people who live up there, we’ve got the two houses that have been evacuated. I don’t know whether others may be in the future. We had comments about flooding, you know, water coming down that will need looking at.’

by local democracy reporter Emma Draper

Photo by Callum Staley