Hotel Bell Tent Planning Support Letter

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you in support of Hotel Bell Tent’s Planning Application for change of use of land at Ballakermeen High School for the Isle of Man TT race week.

We would like to rent the playing field and some facilities from the school during the TT to provided temporary accommodation with our canvas Bell Tents (Figure 4 shows both the total area of the school and the playing field marked out in red). As it is accommodation and not hospitality, there would be low noise impact and we will be policing out of hours noise. The school are delivering letters to the immediate houses.

We will only be using the playing field for the bell tented village (Figure 1) with well signed vehicle access through the main road of to the school entrance (Figure 5) thus causing minimal impact on the surrounding residential area (Westminster Drive). Although the school is a secure site, we will have manned security on site for the duration of our camp using CCTV 24hrs. The school is allowing us to use their car parking facilities between the playing field and the school buildings (Figure 5). The campers would have use of the school canteen- serving hot/cold food and the toilet and shower facilities (Figures 2 and 3).

At Hotel Bell Tent we are aware of the lateness of this application, but we have been informed by many different parties on the Island that there is a much needed demand for accommodation during the TT week (Nikki Salmon in Tourism, Hazel Fletcher at the Highway Division, Regency Travel and everybody we’ve spoken to on the island). Is it possible to rush it through the process so we can make it happen? Our contacts on the Island of Man are Julie Edge at Ballakermeen High School 01624 648701 or Richard Howarth at Regency Travel 01624 694456. We are expecting to bring 60 tents over for 2013 with people booking for two different blocks 30th May to 3rd June and 3rd June to 7th June. Including crew, security and guests we would expect 300 people on site at a time.

We have over 5 years experience in providing event accommodation for sporting events, festivals and private parties and we endeavour to continue our professional work at the Isle of Man TT with a swift set up and take down of the camp, efficient cleaning of the site and attentive and considerate working relationship to all parties involved. We hope you look fondly upon this proposal and I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Tobyn Cleeves