A scheme to regenerate town and village centres has been a success, according to Chief Minister Howard Quayle.

Jason Moorhouse (Arbory, Castletown and Malew) tabled a written question asking Mr Quayle the date of the last regeneration meeting that he attended.

In a reply, that starts in the third person, Mr Quayle states: ’The last meeting attended by the chief minister that included an agenda item on the town and village centre regeneration scheme was November 16, 2016.

’It should be noted that the public realm improvement projects agreed to be taken forward as part of the scheme have now all been completed.’

Those schemes included:

Castletown - Market Square and George Lane;

Douglas - Strand Street retail area;

Laxey - MER Station, village square, coach park and pavement link;

Peel - Market Square;

Port Erin - Station Road and Orchard Road;

Port St Mary - Retail area pavements;

Ramsey - Court House area, Parliament Street, Market Square.

Mr Quayle adds: ’The enhancements that these schemes have delivered are benefiting our town and villages, helping to encourage new businesses to set up and providing a more pleasant and accessible public realm.

’The success of the local regeneration committees in steering their projects from concept through to implementation is something that we would like to build upon and, alongside other priorities, we are looking at how best this can be achieved.’