Developer Dandara has been granted permission to build nearly 50 new houses in the west of the island.

The company’s application (19/01155/B) will see 47 homes built on agricultural grazing land south of Ballatessan Meadow and behind Castle View nursing home on Glenfaba Road. Peel Golf Club’s practice ground borders the eastern boundary.

It includes a mix of four-bedroom detached Maple, Redwood and Beech homes, three-bedroom detached Hazel homes, three-bed semi-detached Keppel and Baldwin homes, and two-bedroom Birch terraces.

Dandara said the 5.68 acre site provides the opportunity to develop a ’discrete pocket of houses’, linked to recent neighbouring developments, so minimising the ’potential visual impact on the landscape’.

The development includes an area of public open space on the western side, which includes a playground for younger children.

Existing hedgerows will be maintained and the existing boundary will be enhanced with the planting of native Manx species.

Approval being granted by the planning committee is subject to several conditions, as well as standard requirement for work to begin within four years.

The committee agreed that before the work begins, Dandara and the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture must agree on a working method for removing hedging so as not to affect common lizards or breeding birds which live in the area.

Also agreed was that the lighting for the new homes must be directed away from the perimeter hedging. The committee said this is to ’ensure the development does not adversely affect the perimeter hedging which has ecological value’.

Provision has also been made in the plans to include 12 affordable homes in the development, which is a requirement for any new build which includes over eight homes.

Access to the new homes will be off Glenfaba Road. In order to minimise on street parking, each home will have two allocated parking spaces, with some having garages as well.

The government’s strategic plan states that 5,100 extra homes will be need to be built up to 2026 to meet forecast housing need, of which 770 would be in the west. However this anticipated growth is disputed.