A Garff MHK wants the Department of Infrastructure to hold off on plans for sea defences in Laxey, and come up with a different solution.

Martyn Perkins says many residents don't back the proposals, which include a 1.2 metre reinforced concrete wall along the village promenade.

The designs have been created by the department as it looks to protect Laxey against the threat of rising sea levels and coastal over-topping

If approved, the scheme will cost between £1.5m and £2 million.

It’s expected to take six to eight months to complete and is said to offer protection for a century.

Similar projects to mitigate the effects of climate change have been undertaken by the department in Castletown and Port St Mary.

Mr Perkins believes the department needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with something more sympathetic to the area.

He told the BBC: ’Laxey is one of the best beaches in the Isle of Man, and we’ve got to make sure it stays that way.

’And the feedback I’m getting from the public is they don’t want the 1.2m wall they’ve proposed.’

He said that the current generation were ’custodians’ of Laxey beach, who must protect it for future generations, but rejected this way forward, saying ’there is more than one way to skin a cat’.

Mr Perkins added that he believed planning was forthcoming, but he wanted the DoI to meet with Laxey Commissioners, residents and other stakeholders before anything was ’set in stone’.

He said: ’We need to sit down and look at all the alternatives.

’I just think it is vital that we come together and we try to sort it out and come up with amiable solution that will stand the island in good stead for the next 100 years.’