Ownership of land at the Underway in Port St Mary on which there is a plan to build two houses can no longer be disputed.

Alec Merchant, who helped set up the Bay View Action Group to challenge a development by Haven Homes, now concedes that the developer has title to the land.

Haven Homes has planning consent to build two five -bedroom houses on the Underway.

They back onto a very steep bank below the village’s main road.

A public meeting was held last month at Port St Mary town hall to discuss concerns over the stability of a bank after a digger began clearance work.

The area suffered a landslip in the 1990s and - slightly further along at Happy Valley - in 2010 leading to road closure, house evacuation and major disruption.

Mr Merchant called the public meeting to explore the possibility of raising, through crowd funding, the £20,000 estimated to be needed to mount a legal challenge to planning permission granted to the original applicant Len Chatel.

Permission for the plan was conditional on parking bays being created on the foreshore.

Mr Merchant had believed maps show the parking bays lie within the harbour, so the area belongs to the Department of Infrastructure.

But he has now been shown a document he had not previously seen which proves that in 1984, the then Attorney General ruled the land should not belong to the harbours division.

’He disowned from harbours that tract of land below the road,’ said Mr Merchant. ’We had to concede Haven Homes has the title.’

But Mr Merchant and the Bay View Action Group remain concerned that the site is a risky one to develop.

He said the group was awaiting a method statement from the developer, and Port St Mary Commissioners, of which is a member, are keeping a watching brief.

’They’re in touch with the relevant authorities. All we can do is wait,’ he said.

In an open letter distributed at the public meeting, Haven Homes’ managing director Dave Lewis wrote: ’We are professional in our approach and take engineering installations very seriously’.

He said they had appointed highly qualified specialist consultants from the UK and in September detailed bore testing and ground profiling work had been carried out to ’confirm the most appropriate engineering solution for any bank retention that may be required.’

Mr Lewis said Haven Homes has communicated with all relevant government departments and the commissioners. And he insisted that the validity of land ownership cannot be questioned and planning approval is in place.