Laxey Football Club is calling for the Department of Infrastructure to investigate the cause of heavy flooding at its pitch.

The club’s president, former MLC Dudley Butt, has asked the department to ’investigate the root of this problem’, saying the issue only arose following recent heavy rainfall.

Mr Butt said: ’The pitch is a valuable asset for Laxey and the area. We have over 250 children using the pitch as members of Laxey AFC, and the general public and Laxey School also rely on the area for their play and leisure.

’On about November 8 or 9, a new stream -a small river - suddenly appeared. It ran down the steps of the old path leading from Laxey School down to the pitch.

’This stream flooded areas of the pitch near the halfway line and a game that weekend had to be called off.

’The new stream was continuous. During recent very wet winters of 2015 and last year, this stream did not exist.’

Club members diverted the flood water to an area where it was ’less likely to flood the pitch’, which is owned by Noble’s Trust in the name of Garff Commissioners and leased by the football club.

But the stream ended up flooding large areas of the pitch, in Glen Road.

The club contacted Manx Utilities which sent two staff who inspected the area.

’They informed us that they thought that the DoI had been doing some work in the Quarry Road area the week before,’ he explained.

’We also spoke to Laxey School and they were experiencing flooding in their car park and playground, something which had not happened before.’

Mr Butt was told by Manx Utilities that they had passed the issue on to the DoI.

’We have found a blocked culvert about half a mile above the pitch, which has now been cleared.

’At the moment the water has reduced and hopefully that’s what the cause was. We are still awaiting the investigating,’ he said.

Garff Commissioners, which was informed of the issue about two weeks ago, thinks a number of issues could have contributed to the flooding.

Clerk Pete Burgess: said: ’We were already looking at something else in the area of the school playground.

’There was a large volume of water coming off the school grounds running through a gully and discharging out of a gully.

’At the lowest point it is running onto the school footpath through the bank onto the football pitch.’

He said flooding also caused problems with the Manx Electric Railway line.

’The school one’s fairly easy to fix, but I’m not sure about the MER,’ he said.

’Hopefully it’s something that can be resolved, but it needs relevant government departments to sort out the individual issues.’