Tynwald members will this week be asked to sign off on £2m for the construction of new playing fields for Castle Rushen High School.

The £2,074,000 sum will allow the Department of Education, Sport and Culture to begin phase one of building a new high school for the south of the island.

The playing fields will be built on land adjacent to the current school on Arbory Road and include sports pitches, athletics ground and an all-weather pitch.

It will allow the construction of the new high school to be completed on the existing playing fields at the rear of the school.

The field was gifted to the department in 2001 on the condition it be used for recreation facilities for the school.

This will also benefit the wider community which will be able to use the facilities.

In a memo attached to the Tynwald order paper, DESC said: ’This motion is being brought to Tynwald as an enabling phase of the overall new school development, so that in due course when the existing pitches become a construction site, the existing school maintains access to external sports facilities, though use of these pitches which have been developed in advance.’

While now being moved by Minister Dr Alex Allinson, the new school was first confirmed by the now Home Affairs Minister Graham Cregeen, who said in 2018 ’our children deserve a new school’. He added: ’It makes them feel valued and where this has happened elsewhere behaviour has improved. It is vitally important, we are pushing it forward.’

Within the school there are plans for a lecture theatre which can also be a cinema and an area for the arts and a commitment to make it as eco-friendly as possible.

Scheduled for completion by 2024, it will be the first major school redevelopment since St Ninian’s Lower School opened in 2012.