Salvation Army Planning Statement

1. The Salvation Army have entered into an agreement with British Red Cross to acquire their headquarters and operations centre based on the Isle of Man Business park. Completion of this transaction is scheduled for 31st January 2020.
2. The Salvation Army (SA), an international Church and charitable organisation, have been serving the Manx Community for 136 years. It vacated its former headquarters building in Lord Street, Douglas, over 2 years ago as it was no longer "fit for use" following discovery of significant structural defects.
3. Since the closure of the Lord Street site, the SA have been temporarily accommodated in a redundant School Building (Fairfield School, Tynwald Street Douglas) until a permanent site could be acquired. This site (Fairfield School) is recorded under the "East Area Plan" as a "specific site" identified to accommodate 9 houses (subsequently confirmed in the independent Inspectors report) and not available for our permanent use.
4. Whilst the original intention was to rebuild on the original Lord Street site, the costs of so doing escalated by over making it uneconomic and outside the resources of the charity to proceed with that project. It additionally suffered from extreme car parking and drop off availabiy problems.
5. The Salvation Army has for over 2 years examined all available sites in and around Douglas ( including those held in land banks by developers), however as most land is either earmarked or reserved for future residential development (a planning priority in Central Douglas) or alternatively major commercial development, no suitable site which could accommodate our headquarters and operations together with the required associated car parking, can be identified.
6. The original Lord Street site had no associated car parking on site with stopping outside the building now illegal. Thus a Town centre location has become increasingly problematical particularly for elderly drop off centre users and the many other activities which also require good car parking and easy accessibility.
7. The existing headquarters building of the British Red Cross would be intended to remain broadly as at present however the current wheelchair store would be converted to a lounge/seating area linked to the small kitchen and available for use by users/ workers in the new centre. It would NOT be available to the general public. The original mess room for Red Cross drivers (currently an extension of the kitchen area) would be converted to form additional offices for our Debt Advisory Counsellors and for a Chaplaincy service. On the upper floor the existing training room would be retained for similar use and the other room originally allocated for the Red Cross manager and support staff would be preserved as a

General multi purpose room. This would for instance be used for sorting and distributing the annual major Toy appeal donations and also for other general use.

1. The Salvation Army have an extensive island wide Community support program which will be located in this building which includes assistance with Deposits for energy suppliers and general financial assistance to individuals in genuine need. Alongside this we will be offering a free debt advice service from April 2020 to enable those on limited means to survive more easily.
2. During the Christmas period we have an extensive Island wide Toy collection and distribution operation (amounting to thousands of units), where under referral from various government agencies we assist the less fortunate children and families on the island with gifts. This requires easy vehicular access and large areas for sorting etc.
3. Whilst the application is for Change of use of the "existing building" it will be our intention in due course to submit a formal planning application for an annex to the building being a multi purpose hall, toilets and kitchen. This is not the subject of this application. However it should be noted that within the Isle of Man governments " Major Incident Response Plan" (latest Civil Defence review date November 2019), The Salvation Army makes its centres available at the request of the Government Emergency Planning Unit (Section 6.24 of Plan) to provide catering facilities and welfare services, in order to support the management of any emergency. Our centres have supported this program since the 1930's. We would intend in these extreme circumstances to continue to support the community in this way. The particular area of the Business Park is a concentration of major office and other activities and thus the availability of such a local facility would be, we believe, highly desirable particularly as there is a major need for available car parking and a site that is easily accessible.
4. The Red Cross Headquarters site is significantly under-developed and as indicated under section 10 of the IOM Strategic Plan, we will seek in due course to ensure that the site is used in a much more efficient manner.
5. WE WOULD BE GRATEFUL IF OUR APPLICATION INITIALLY FOR A CHANGE OF USE APPLICATION FOR THE EXISTING BUILDING COULD BE FAVOURABLY CONSIDERED.