Groundworks for a new £14.5m multi-franchise car showroom are well under way - but the developer has submitted a brand new planning application.

Channel Islands-based Jacksons received the green light for the development on a 10-acre site at Cooil Road, Braddan, in June last year after an appeal against the scheme was rejected.

But now a new planning application has been lodged.

The new application 17/00230/B by developer Hartford Ltd is of the same scale as the scheme that was approved, but it includes minor amendments.

One of the showrooms will be lower and smaller and there will no longer be a separate wet valet building which will instead be incorporated in the aftersales and workshop building.

Disposal of surface water is no longer to be via a long pipe to Middle River but will now be by a connection to an existing pipe in the field alongside.

There are also changes to the site levels to reduce the differences in level across the site.

The original application 15/01186/B was submitted on November 10 2015 but was approved within weeks, with a decision issued on December 17.

However, an appeal was lodged by Morbaine Ltd, which argued there was no over-riding national need for the development.

Car dealers David Mylchreest, Ocean Ford and Eurocars disputed the applicant’s claims the new showroom would have a £1m per week turnover, arguing the Manx motor trade is just not big enough to give a return on the investment.

But the then DEFA Minister Richard Ronan supported an inspector’s recommendation to uphold the planning consent for much of the development but refuse approval for a third showroom, a second aftersales building and extension to the second showroom.

A spokesman for the planning office explained that it is not possible to simply amend a planning consent unless a development is substantially complete - which is why a new planning application had to be submitted in this case.

A dozen new vehicle franchises are set to be introduced by Jacksons, including Audi, Volkswagen, Volvo, Porsche, Bentley, Aston Martin, Skoda, Jeep, Fiat, Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Ssangyong and VW Commercial.

jobs

Some 65 jobs will initially be created by the privately-funded venture with further expansion plans expected to take the final tally to 100.

Cooil Road, between the Currys PC World and Isle of Man Business Park junctions, will be closed until May 12 for construction of a new roundabout access to the proposed Jacksons showroom.