Manx Development Corporation will begin redevelopment work on the old nurses’ home on Westmoreland Road in Douglas today (Tuesday, May 3).

The visitor car park beside it closed on Friday.

Visitors to both the Kensington Group Practice and the clinics held at the Community Health Centre are now able to use the car parking area to the immediate front of the Community Health Centre for up to two hours.

The designated disabled parking there will remain unchanged and available for use.

Parking will also be available on Westmoreland Road and the surrounding streets which are two-hour disc zones patrolled by local parking wardens.

The car park closure will remain in place for at least two years.

Planning permission is still pending for the redevelopment which would see the old nurses’ home building converted and extended to provide 37 flats, cafe with takeaway and associated car, motorcycle and bicycle parking and landscaping.

The redevelopment includes, a modern glazed extension will be added to the roof of the five-storey building, which will house flats with views over Douglas Bay.

And the existing floors below it will incorporate one and two bedroom flats.

MCD, a government-owned body, said the recent decision to retain the building was due in part to its architectural merit.

Chair of the Housing and Communities Board Chris Thomas MHK said that the government had indicated at Tynwald members briefing that the intention was for the new flats to be homes for key workers rather than being marketed as buy-to-lets.

Mr Thomas has maintained since 2016 that it would be ‘daft to demolish the building and that it would be far cheaper to re-develop it’.