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FORMER DRILL HALL / WOOL CONTROL CENTRE, PEEL ROAD, DOUGLAS
20/01374
The Government through the former Government Property Trustees bought the building and owned it from 1923 to 2013. Prior to this it was a drill hall, designed by Isaac Dixon Ltd and erected by James Cowle in 1896 and is understood to have been surplus to requirements from 1935 onwards as a new hall was built at Tromode. By 1940 the hall was being used by wool control division of Government. The building was transferred to Department of Highways, Ports and Properties (as it was then) and then 'sold' on to Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1988.
Throughout the whole of this timescale there has not been a single planning application by Government for its use as anything but a drill hall. It was rated as storage in 1987; that may be because at the time of year the valuation was undertaken it was only used for storage. It has not been reassessed since. However the Wool Control including the wool bale operation, now housed at Knockaloe Mooar Farm, was and is a storage, distribution and wholesale of bulky goods operation. In detail this operation, as follows, is still the same as was carried out at the Drill Hall.
Essentially fleeces are gathered in during the summer from farms and stored elsewhere. From late September the fleeces / wool are brought in large bales in to the Drill Hall every day for three weeks by haulage contractors, then every day for three weeks the fleeces / wool are sorted and graded, then every day for three weeks the graded wool was baled and then the bales were sold to Bradford (for making on into carpets) and loaded onto a large open sided wagon for transport. The whole operation is then repeated continually until all the fleeces have been dealt with - normally through until the end of March the following year.
At the same time parts of the former Drill Hall, in particular the gallery, were used for storage of goods such as egg boxes which were then distributed to the farms producing eggs under the former egg marketing scheme. The indoor rifle range in the lower ground floor continued to be used as such for a time before being simply used for storage.
After Isle of Man Government's DEFA sale of the Drill Hall in 2013 different goods were brought in in bulk, viz recycled bulky household fittings, stored and sold on for reclamation to members of the public. The hall was only open to the public on two days a week; the numbers of vehicles were small.
In 2018 the recycling / reclamation business finished and today's operation is based around Village Fireplaces business of the supply, fitting and maintenance of fuel burners / stoves, fire surrounds and associated chimneys / flues. The front (west end) of the drill hall is a showroom for wood burners and fire surrounds; suppliers demand that there is a showroom for their products as part of their contract with the installer but the burners are not sold directly from the showroom. The company has a separate unit at Hills Meadow to which orders for fire surrounds, stoves and burners are delivered from the UK. There is only a very limited range of small scale storage and sale of bulky goods ie small burners and some specialist logs for the burners from the application site. While the public can visit the premises the nature of the operation is such that there are at a maximum only two or three at any one time. The premises are open Monday to Thursday 9am - 5pm, Friday \& Saturday 9am - 4pm, Sunday closed. The operator is not on the premises all the time. The rear (east end) of the drill hall is used for storage of items associated with the fitting of the stoves and burners.
Thus the property has been used for some storage, distribution and sale of bulky goods from at least the 1940s. Government sold part of the land to Quayle's garage next door (Brown Bobby) in 1982 but retained access rights over this land for the use of vehicles accessing the Drill Hall and parking on its forecourt (copy of land registration document attached). While Quayle's (Brown Bobby Filling Station) have submitted applications in the past for their land adjacent to the Drill Hall on two sides, those planning applications did not cover the Drill Hall itself.
As above access, egress and vehicle turning is obtained over the area which is shared with Quayle's filling station adjacent to Peel Road traffic lights. Apart from car parking a company van may visit the site once or twice a month from the Hills Meadow unit.
The site is walkable from the town centre - 10mins - and there are regular bus services running along both Peel Road and Circular Road outside.
Four parking spaces are available and in the sole ownership of the applicant in front of the west end of the building. There are two permanent employees at this site and therefore one or two cars regularly parked on site. Visitors at any one time are low in number. There is additional parking available on Circular Road if required.
Plans Jav. vf 1 location plan Jw. vf 2 site plan DALS 3 layout woolcatrol centre DALS 4 layout current / proposed
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