Environment Minister Geoffrey Boot MHK has overruled a planning inspector to allow an appeal against refusal of plans to redevelop a prominent site in Laxey.

Deborah Forster’s application (17/00006/B) to demolish the homes, garage and outbuildings at Cliffside and End Cafe and replace them with four homes was turned down in November.

Independent planning inspector Michael Hurley ruled this month that an appeal against the refusal be upheld.

But Mr Boot has overruled the planning inspector’s recommendation and has allowed the development.

In his report, Mr Hurley said: ’There is evidence of repeated landslips on the cliffs in the vicinity of the appeal site.

’I do not attach great significance to the fact that no debris has fallen from the cliff on to the appeal site since 2002.’

He agreed with recommendation made by a planning inspector in 2008 that ’the agreement of appropriate measures to address the question of slope stability should be regarded as a pre-requisiste for the development to proceed’.

However, in the appeal decision notice, DEFA chief executive Richard Lole outlines the Minister’s position, stating a pre-commencement planning condition seeking the submission of technical information ’is not uncommon’.

And he says that a retaining wall has been included in the proposal.

Mr Lole added: ’The Minister, with the greatest respect to the current inspector, attaches less weight to his conclusions than to those of the previous inspector. In that regard, the Minister concludes that he is simply not persuaded that the inspector’s conclusion that planning approval should be withheld on this ground is sustained.’

The application was a renewal of a scheme (07/01201/B) for which planning approval expired in January 2013.

That application was approved at appeal in January 2008.

Turning down the latest application in January, planners raised concerns about the stability of the slope to the rear of the site.

In the decision notice, it stated: ’Whilst planning approval was granted in 2008 for the same development, there is no information on the current condition of the slope to the rear, nor whether there have been any events which may have further de-stabilised the slope since the earlier decision.

’As such, there is nothing to demonstrate that the development as proposed could be implemented, nor any indication of how the required remediation and protection of the slope could be successfully undertaken and the environmental impact that could have.’

A condition attached to the planning approval states that before work starts on site, a scheme to address the potential danger as a result of landslip must be agreed by planners.

The bid is for three two-bedroom properties and one two-bedroom, all with balconies.

There will also be off-site parking for eight vehicles.

Garff Commissioners, the local authority, submitted that they were keen to see the site redeveloped.