Plans for a new gym at Onchan Park have been given the go ahead by planners.

Brothers Danny and Joe Kane submitted proposals to turn the former children’s play area into the gym in April this year.

The Dance and Fun Factory, which had welcomed families for around 15 years, closed after Christmas last year.

The premises is owned by Onchan Commissioners and has a varied history. Before becoming The Dance and Fun Factory, the building was used as a squash centre.

A change of use application to turn the former play area into a gym left some people non-plussed and questioning whether there is enough for kids to do in the area.

However, the siblings, who runs The Meadow Gym in Douglas, previously said youngsters would very much be a focus for the new facility.

He said: ‘A few comments have been made that this is taking away potential opportunities for children in the park. We would like to disagree with this and say that we offer the best product there is for kids' fitness in the island and see this as a great opportunity for us to do more good work.

‘I’ve worked with various schools and by end of 2025 want to be offering kids’ fitness to as many as we can, and this new space will allow that.’

Within the application, the current layout will remain with four separate rooms, but they will all form part of the gym.

The application suggests the opening times for the gym which would be 6am-7.30 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; 4pm-7pm on Wednesdays, 6am-11am on Saturdays and 9am-1pm on Sundays.

In granting the application, planning officer Vanessa Porter said: ‘The proposal is deemed to comply with the land zoning and, in turn, General Policy 2 and Environment Policy 22 of the Isle of Man Strategic Plan 2016 and is therefore acceptable.’