A Building Preservation Notice (BPN) has just been issued for the former Waterfall Hotel in Glen Maye, protecting it from plans to demolish it for a housing development.

A planning application (20/00605/B) was made last June by Douglas-based company Jim Limited, which proposed building four terraced dwellings on the former hotel’s footprint. It was refused this January, with an appeal lodged by the company later that month.

The news of the BPN came after villagers in Glen Maye signed a petition to save the ’local landmark’.

The BPN, which protects the building until October 9, means that the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (DEFA) deemed the Waterfall Hotel to be of ’special architectural or historic interest’, and is being considered for entry in the Protected Buildings Register.

The building was built around 1860 and had been operated as a pub/restaurant until its closure in 2014.

Jim Limited had previously applied for permission (17/01189/B) to demolish the hotel in 2017, but this was refused at appeal in 2018.

Patrick Commissioners, who rejected both the 2017 and 2020 planning applications, cited both its historical value and their desire to see it registered, and also pointed out that the owners had ’not been fortunate’ in their selection of managers for the pub when it was in operation, adding that the Waterfall had seen far greater success under its previous owners who had ran it 13 years ago.

The commissioners added that the proposed houses represented an ’overdevelopment of the site’ which was more suited to an urban townscape rather than a village setting.

They also pointed out that approval of the application would have ’sent a wrong message’ that owners of similar sites could ’make more money destroying a local amenity and replacing it with residential accommodation than if they worked hard to redevelop the business.

In refusing the recent application, the planning committee referred to the refusal of the 2017 application and stated that the loss of the public house should not be accepted ’without very clear evidence that any such use is unlikely to be commercially viable’ - consistent with Community Policy 4 of the strategic plan.

Planners added that they did not feel that the owners had given any consideration to a new form of commercial use for the business either.