Douglas Council has been granted planning permission for a development in Willaston.

After four years of disputes the council has seen plans approved for a complex of 48 flats on Snaefell Road.

The plans will require a number of trees bordering Manor Park to be removed.

But the council says more will be planted in the area once the project has been completed.

Councillor Janet Thommeny, lead member for housing, said: ’We’re looking to start work in August or September this year, and it’s going to provide a much, much needed apartment block in Willaston and then we can get people in there and free up some family accommodation.’

The council also this week said that new build properties may be the best option for local authority housing in the future as they are better for the environment.

It said that it is less sustainable - both financially and environmentally - to refurbish older housing stock.

It comes as the £12.6 million Peel Road Apartments project is due to complete next month.

Local democracy reporter Sarah Hendy asked the council whether new projects such as these mark the end of the road for older properties in the council’s housing stock and whether they at risk of being demolished and replaced.

The council’s environmental lead, Councillor Falk Horning, said: ’Whenever we have uninhabited properties we of course try to resolve the problems, but many of those problems require so much investment that it’s not really good value for money.

’Especially when we have the climate change mitigation strategies in mind, many of those buildings would be very very hard to insulate to a standard that would make fossil fuel heating obsolete, so quite often it’s actually better for the environment to rebuild those properties because it would last 100 years, they would be properly insulated.

’And those properties built 100 years ago, the street scene was very different.

’Nowadays, of course, car ownership is much higher, we have wheelie bins, we have a very different lifestyle in many different aspects, so when we create new housing estates now, or rebuild them, we can make them relevant to the modern times and give the tenants a long-term nice environment to live in.’