New plans have been submitted (22/00361/B) for the demolition of the Waterfall Hotel pub, which would involve the construction of six houses and a commercial building.

The Glen Maye pub, which closed in 2014, was granted a Building Preservation Notice last summer after a petition to save it by local residents, but this only lasted until October.

It meant that the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (DEFA) deemed the Waterfall Hotel to be of ‘special architectural or historic interest’.

Douglas-based company Jim Limited, the current applicant, last made an application (20/00605/B) in June 2020 for demolition and four terraced houses to be built on its footprint, but this was refused.

The latest plans would again be for the building of four terrace houses in the hotel’s footprint, but also for two semi-detached houses on the beer garden site and a commercial premises on the ground of the car park.

Each of the dwellings would be four bedroom and include gardens.

The one-story commercial unit would have a floor space of 72 square metres, a glass overhang and a proposal for an allowance to be used for different classes of usage so as to ‘give it the upmost chance of commercial success in a small village location’.

In an accompanying planning statement, Jim Ltd describes the hotel as being ‘in a poor state of decay’.

It seeks to address the issue of why the Waterfall could not continue to be run as a business.

Among the reasons cited are a decline in people going out to eat and drink, competition from pubs in Peel (where people are likely to go when they do go out, rather than to Glen Maye), and the ‘very positive’ rising awareness of the risks of drink driving.

Those behind the application argue that though Glen Maye residents have campaigned against the loss of a community facility, ‘it is deemed that only a small percentage of local residents would utilise the Waterfall Hotel as was the case with the previous attempts to run [it]’.

The statement adds that the village’s small population cannot sustain a viable pub in high or low season, seven days a week, nor is it on a well used thoroughfare so as to generate passing trade.

Parallels were drawn between the Liverpool Arms pub in Baldrine, and the Ballacallin Hotel in Dalby (recently destroyed by fire).

All in all, after ‘many years invested in attempting to make a success of the current business’, Jim Ltd said it had accrued trading losses of more than £200,000.

The statement also argues why the building cannot be renovated and converted.

It points out that it would require ‘a significant financial investment’ to repair the ‘severe effects’ of damp, and that the cost of a conversion would be ‘very similar’ to a new build.

Lastly, Jim Ltd states that it believes a smaller venture would stand more of a chance of success in such a location, hence the proposed smaller unit with potential use as a cafe, bar, restaurant, shop, or community hub.