More buildings could be granted protected status before the end of the current administration.

It follows three sites being saved from demolition earlier this month after being deemed historically important. Those buildings were the Cosy Nook cafe in Port Erin, the Mitre Hotel in Kirk Michael and Trafalgar House on the South Quay in Douglas.

Environment, Food and Agriculture Minister Geoffrey Boot says there are arguments for hundreds more buildings to be preserved.

He said: ’There are a number of buildings up for consideration, and before the end of this administration I hope to bring some of those forward.

’The big problem has been that we’ve had Covid, we’ve had a problem in recruiting qualified personnel to carry-through the registration process. When I took over the department I had some ideas that we might be able to involve Manx National Heritage, Culture Vannin and various other registration bodies to progress the registration process outside or with their help of the department.

’Unfortunately, the approaches that we made didn’t bear fruit, so we were left in the situation we were. We’ve had difficulty with qualified staff - if we retain the staff, progress will be made.’

Mr Boot added: ’We have done an audit and taken some buildings out that were not deemed worthy of registration, so we’ve shortened the list.

’We will be carrying out more of a desktop exercise to look at the 200-plus buildings that have been brought to our attention that may be worth protecting.

’Each building that is identified will go through a consultation process, with a proposal to register notice, but it is not our policy to alert owners to the possibility of registration in other jurisdictions, which has led to people reacting preemptivley because they thought that they were going to have a registration served on them. We don’t make that "list", which isn’t a formal list, public for that reason.

’When a building is identified as being of significant interest, obviously the proposal does go to consultation and that gives the owners, as well as other bodies and the public generally, ample opportunity to respond to the consultation.’