An historic former pub in Port St Mary continues to face an uncertain future 10 years after it closed – and nearly five years since plans to demolish it were approved.

The Bay View Hotel was put on the market again in September last year with an asking price of £565,000.

A spokesman for estate agents Garforth Gray said: ‘We first listed this property at the back end of September last year.

‘Whilst it has been listed with us, we have attended to numerous enquiries, but yet to receive any serious interest.’

Plans (17/00976/B) by Red Pen Limited to demolish the Bay View Hotel on Primrose Terrace and replace it with three three-bedroom flats and ground floor parking were refused in September 2017.

But they were then approved on appeal the following year.

In May last year the planning committee approved a variation to the consent to allow a four-year extension for any development to begin.

The Bay View Hotel was built in 1834 and is a prominent landmark in the village. It has hosted historic Manx events, such as the inquest into the Brig Lily disaster in 1852.

Port St Mary Commissioners objected to the development, saying it was over-intensive. And residents argued the building should be retained on grounds of its age and use of traditional materials.

Turning down Red Pen’s application in 2017, government planners said that the height of the proposed building, 2m taller than the old hotel, as well as its balconies and the design of the windows, would ‘not sit comfortably in the streetscene’.

They said that the current building ‘contributes positively to the character of the village’ and that it had not been demonstrated that the building could be renovated instead of demolished.

But planning inspector Brian Sims, recommending the appeal be allowed, said that in his view, the building would ‘serve to make an appropriate new architectural statement of its own, which would respect, and indeed preserve, the character of the surrounding townscape.’

He said there is ‘no doubt that the Bay View Hotel is fondly regarded and remembered by many local people as a significant, historic feature of the traditional street scene facing the Port St Mary waterfront’.

‘It is material that its loss would clearly be viewed with nostalgia by much of the community,’ the inspector accepted.

The Bay View Hotel closed for business around 2013 and has remained empty ever since.

It was sold to Red Pen in 2015.

A planning condition states that before any demolition can begin, a photographic survey of the outside and inside is carried out to retain a record of the historic building.