There aren’t enough commissioners in Malew parish at present to form a board large enough to make decisions.

Last week, chairman Bob Pilling stood down due to personal reasons and his departure was swiftly followed by the resignations of Barbara and John Brereton.

With only vice-chair Margaret Mansfield and Janice Knighton still in post, decision-making at board level has stopped, as three members are needed to ensure the authority is quorate.

Adding to the turmoil, clerk Barry Powell has been on sick leave in the last few months. But he has returned recently on light duties, with deputy Susan Paynter assisting in the role.

The standstill won’t affect day-to-day services, according to Mr Powell and Mrs Mansfield.

With the proposed new Dandara development in the pipeline (the planning committee has yet to make its decision), Ballasalla faces transformation and some big decisions.

The local government unit has offered guidance to the authority on how the vacancies can be filled, but is satisfied there’s no need to intervene any further.

It’s expected a notice of casual vacancy will appear in newspapers over the next two weeks, after which, registered voters in the authority may request an election.

If that is received, an election must be held within 42 days.

Should the authority request further help, under law the government could appoint new members to fill all or any of the vacancies until new commissioners are elected and take up office.

Department of Infrastructure local government unit’s executive officer Stephen Willoughby said this situation - where several commissioners resign at once is ’not unusual’.

’There have been a few over the years,’ he said.

The trend island-wide is for authorities to become smaller and Castletown and Braddan have already done so with similar plans in Douglas, Port St Mary and Port Erin.

Does the trend increase the chance of this happening?

’It doesn’t matter how many members there are,’ he said. ’It’s unfortunate if they step down at the same time.’

The hiatus in Malew should be for ’a short period of time, he said. ’Most tasks are carried out by officers, there are no burning issues in Malew, they are not panicking too much. This could be fairly quickly resolved, if there is an uncontested election.’

Regarding appointing outside members as a temporary measure, he said they will only do that ’if they are desperately short, if an authority said it was needed.

’In my 13 years (doing the job) it has never happened, we do not know who we’d appoint.’