More than 80% of respondents to a Manx National Heritage consultation on the future of the former Castletown police station think the taxpayer should pay for it.

The former police station was designed by architect Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott between the years 1899-1901 and was one of the last buildings he worked on before leaving the island.

Since the police vacated the building in 2017, the building was sold to MNH for £100,000 after its offer to have it given over for free was rejected by government, which had sought to sell it for £250,000 on the open market.

Officially coming into the ownership of MNH earlier this year, the heritage group has been consulting the public on what to do with the building.

The majority of the 401 responses, were from residents in the IM9 postcode area (south). All respondents felt it was ’important to preserve the building and 97% of respondents felt it important for the public to have access to the building’, MNH said.

A spokesman added: ’Interestingly, 83% of people felt the government and taxpayer should fund the preservation.

’A clear majority felt that the building should attract visitors to Castletown (60%) and be some kind of visitor attraction (63%), whilst 40% supported some kind of commercial use. We also asked people what they didn’t want - with the greatest opposition towards commercial use (38%), whilst almost 20% of people had no clear opposition to any particular use.’

The figures are early results from the survey. MNH said it would be in a better position to release more detailed responses after it has looked at all the ideas.

Part of this process will include working out which ideas are practical, affordable and economically sustainable ideas.