The chair of Castletown Commissioners has said he isn’t aware of any public push back when it comes to the newly established one-way traffic system on Castle Street.

Castle Street in Castletown became one-way northbound to all traffic last week, while work takes place on the old police station and its adjoining building.

This means vehicles are only be able to travel from Castletown Square towards Brewery Wharf.

Original plans involved closing off the street completely to traffic but this was met with rejection by MHKs and commissioners in the area.

When asked how the commissioners and people of the town felt about the change, Jamie Horton, chair of the commissioners for the town, said: ‘I think we all agree it’s not ideal but the work needs to be done.

‘It’s a private application which ultimately restores the dilapidated old registered building in the heart of Castletown and gives many additional bed spaces for the growing tourism sector.

‘The early feedback which I’ve got regarding the one-way has been positive, I’m not aware of any public push back since the bus proposal was resolved and obviously that was a major, major issue that was resolved virtually in the last minute.’

He added: ‘The commissioners have been involved in these plans since early 2020.

‘There was two choices – we either made it one-way or completely shut the road and we couldn’t do that.

‘From 2020, Bus Vannin, DoI and everybody knew about this and knew this problem was going to arise and we’ve just been trying to push everyone through emails and meetings to get to a final decision.’

The pedestrianisation of Market Square in the town has come at a similar time and the two projects are now running concurrently. The removal of parking access will be trialled in the square between Friday, April 29 and Tuesday, September 6 this year.

Mr Horton explained this should have been avoided but the pandemic was to blame, saying: ‘The work needed to be done, we would have preferred to have had this done two years ago but obviously with Covid and everything else and the way it’s gone through the planning it’s taken so much time that they have actually come together to converge together these two projects.

‘I think we’re going to have to make them work, we’re going to have to work in conjunction and hopefully we can see it through.’

He added: ‘It was a bold decision but we all discussed it and we all agreed that it was a project that needed to be done.

‘Pedestrianising the square for the summer, it’s not really like the road being one-way is going to affect it all that much.

‘We’ve got a few plans in progress but what we’ve got to tell the public is we’re not going to have superstar bands playing every week which is what the public tend to think is going to happen, we’re doing it to make Castletown an open space and we’re going to work from there.’