A major Castletown housing development has just been granted approval by the planning committee.

Castletown Commissioners had made an application (19/00961/B) for 133 dwellings at the Schoolhill/Westhill Estate, which will involve the demolition of the 101 existing homes in the estate that were built between 1945 and 1963.

The estate is situated adjacent to Malew Street and Alexandra road, by the location of the Southern 100 grandstand, and the new dwellings form part of a £25.7 million redevelopment initiative for the area.

They will range from 2 bedroom bungalows, flats and houses, to three-bedroom disability bungalows and four-bedroom houses.

Current residents affected by phase 1 of the development (which lasts 18 months) will be accommodated by either permanent moves within the local authority’s wider housing portfolio, or temporarily housed in designated properties.

A ’limited number’ of residents have been moved into properties owned by other providers on the southern region’s shared housing list.

The local authority stated that the redevelopment would ’provide a sustainable mix of replacement local authority housing that reflects the demand of the town and the wider Southern housing list, and additionally a number of affordable homes for resale.’

All 133 homes in the new eco-friendly estate will be built to Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) building standards and will be tightly insulated, so conventional heating is unnecessary, and hot water will be heated by solar panels and air source heat pump cylinder.

It is the first public sector housing development in the island to adopt these environtment standards.

Some 39 homes will be for first-time buyers [on the periphery of the development], and the remaining 94 will be let as public sector housing.

The planning approval stipulates that development must be started within four years.

A second major housing development that is going ahead in Castletown, after a bid to stop it was rejected, is for 96 dwellings which are planned by developer Haven Homes on the corner of Douglas Road and Victoria Road.