The Peveril Rifle Club has applied for planning permission (21/00495/B) to demolish and replace its aging clubhouse at its Slieau Lhost shooting range.

A planning statement described the current clubhouse and associated cabins, built in 2001/2002 when the club had 60 members, as being ’outdated and substandard’ for the club’s ’growing requirements’.

As the club now owns the site, which is located near Windy Corner on the Mountain Road, it is also looking to remove some of the associated shipping containers.

The club is seeking to replace the clubhouse structures with ’a new, modern, fit-for-purpose building’ to provide ’much-needed’ facilities to its growing membership of around 170.

In addition to the members who use the facilities, the shooting club holds open days and corporate events, national shooting competitions with teams from the UK, and it has an arrangement with police firearms teams to allow officers to train there.

It is also used for cartridge pistol shooting.

The application said the club had consulted with the planning department before submitting the application, and had also received a supportive initial response from Onchan Commissioners (the local authority in which the range is situated).

The statement concluded that a new clubhouse was ’desperately’ needed by members and that it would ’undoubtedly improve the visual appearance of the site’ and make for a facility which the club could be proud of when hosting guests.

The proposed clubhouse, of modern construction, would be designed to blend into the rural surroundings by having a non-reflective finish, ’timber effect’ cladding and by having a low elevation.

It would include access onto the existing shooting range, a secure storage room, an office and kitchen, along with an area for seating more than 70 people.