The businessmen behind a £6m sports complex have dropped plans to include shops in the development.

The complex is earmarked for King William’s College land in Castletown.

The application (21/00228/A) includes plans for a 50m Olympic swimming pool, 60m running track and a gym.

Plans were first submitted by the Southern Community Sport Facility charity in November 2019, but were then delayed by the pandemic.

The applicants will lease the land from the private school and run the facility as a charity with funding from gym memberships.

The original 2019 plans also included retail units within the complex but in the modified plans resubmitted this month the proposals for shops have been removed as they ’contravene planning policy’.

Other amendments included the pool being situated to the rear of the building instead of the front, in order to reduce the visual impact on the new Janet’s Corner housing development. There will also no longer be a cycle route on the rear boundary.

Behind the initiative for the pool are Douglas North MHK Ralph Peake, Castletown commissioner David Parnell and businessman Roger Raatgever.

Mr Parnell outlined one advantage of the pool as being that it would enable top-level Manx swimmers to get their qualifying times here instead of travelling to the UK. There is currently no 50m pool in the island, which is the minimum size for international time setting.

Though it will not be a public sector community pool, the applicants have been keen to stress that it will be a ’community facility’ open for sports teams and clubs across the island.

Objections to the original plans were made by the Southern Local Authority Swimming Pool Board, which argued that the plans had led to a delay for a new pool to replace the one next to Castle Rushen High School.

Mr Peake, also a swimming coach, has insisted that it is not intended to compete with public sector pools.