Port St Mary Commissioners have submitted a planning application (22/00800/B) to build a new bowling green and club house on land behind the Railway Station Pub.

The local authority was offered the lease on the land by a local family ‘on advantageous terms’.

The bowling club, which was established in 1921, lost its home green last year after the landlord decided not to renew the tenancy.

Its buildings were removed and the land returned to agricultural use.

Since then it has been sharing the green at Breagle Glen with Port Erin Bowling Club.

The new site is nearby, on the opposite side of the railway line.

The club currently has 55 members.

Commissioners chair Bernadette Williams said in the application that the joint club/commissioners working group, ‘strongly supported by Haven Homes as a pro bono initiative’ has spent the last 14 months working to develop the plans which will hopefully see the club restored.

In addition to the new 40 by 40 metre green and clubhouse, there will also be a car park.

The pavillion/club house will include a ‘multipurpose space’ which can serve as both a meeting venue and a place where games of indoor short mat bowls can be played.

It will also house a locker room and equipment room, and an exterior veranda with room for 36 spectators.

In an accompanying letter with the planning application, the commissioners stated that the loss of the club had caused ‘dismay in the village and across the island’, noting that 200 people attended a public meeting in the town hall ‘to express their grave concern and support for retaining the club in the village’.

‘It is difficult to overstate the importance of the club to the village,’ the commissioners’ letter read. We have very limited outdoor space suitable for sports and recreation and its loss is keenly felt.’