Residents in Santon have won the latest round in a planning battle over a proposed landfill site.

The site, at Knock-y-Loughan in Oaklands Road, would have taken 300,000 cubic metres of waste over the next ten years.

But a planning inspector said in his opinion the planning committee had been right to turn down the plan.

He said Sharkey Construction Ltd shouldn’t be allowed to fill a three hundred metre stretch of a deep valley with up to twelve metres of waste in an area of high landscape value and scenic significance.

The company had argued the Island had an urgent need for more landfill, and that because the valley was steep-sided, the site would have been hidden.

But planning inspector David Ward said there had been no need demonstrated for more landfill, and the development would intrude into tranquil countryside.

In his report, he says pollution risks and threats to wildlife hadn’t been addressed by Sharkey Construction, registered at The Paddocks, Ramsey Road in Laxey.

He recommended the appeal be dismissed, DLGE Minister John Shimmin agreed and upheld the decision of the planning committee to refuse permission.