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Strand Veterinary Practice currently deals primarily with small domestic animals as well as equine and farm animals, with the staff members working from Strand Vets in Port Erin which is a small one consult, one surgery room building and visiting client premises, operating out of three vehicles.
The proposed development is a new Veterinary Practice offering additional Referral and Training facilities, which will be combining an additional service with the already established practice on Strand Road in Port Erin which is only equipped for small animal treatment.
The new site is to be dedicated mainly to an equine and farm animal service and a small provision of more advanced small animal services, as opposed to the other established practice which is more suited to the treatment of smaller domestic animals.
The need for a larger site specifically for equine and farm vet services has been identified as animal owners are seeking treatments which require longer term care and the use of advanced equipment. The practice therefore needs to provide areas that have cross infection control augmented (surgical areas) and accommodate large equipment which cannot be transported from site to site and furthermore, animals potentially will need ongoing monitoring after treatment.
The practice acknowledges the difficulty that equine and farm clients face when they want to bring their animal to the clinic for routine procedures e.g. vaccination. Accessing the promenade road and making a turn with a trailer in such a busy area is difficult enough by itself. Small parking spaces prove an impossible task for vehicles with a trailer. Strand Vets appreciates that additional traffic would only disrupt normal vehicle flow in that area. That’s why the Practice believes that an offsite Equine clinic would properly accommodate the needs of equine and farm animal owners.
Clients also must rely on good weather conditions to be able to treat animals that are field based. Therefore, cancellations due to variable weather conditions on IOM are sometimes necessary and can cause stress for the animal and inconvenience for both client and practice, losing valuable veterinary time.
We intend to bring opportunities for additional treatments that are currently not available on Island which will reduce the cost of owners having to send their animals off island with huge transportation fees and risk of the animal being transported when unwell.
Having a practice where the animals are brought to the practice will:
The current site is not able to offer this service and we are not aware of any other practice offering this service.
Our intention is that this service will be identified as a ‘referral centre’ where other practices are able to refer their clients animals so that the entire Island can utilise the services we can offer.
Future plans are to generate a training centre where, vets, nurses and administration teams can be trained in the veterinary service, therefore providing a provision where the Island can generate an opportunity of advancing careers for people who may not be able to access this elsewhere. We already invite students on work experience from IOM schools to generate veterinary interest and UK university students attend to experience veterinary Island life. Continuous Professional Development is a requirement of any veterinary service, which we will invite all IOM practices to attend, however, we would also like to educate the general
public in ‘Animal welfare and wellbeing’. This centre will provide the space and opportunity to offer this service, which fits with the recent IOM Government's Animal Welfare Bill 2023.
Currently, staff members take certain pieces of large equipment home as there is not the space to store it at the existing premises. There is also no suitable place for equine and farm vet equipment and vehicles to be suitably washed down, which is soon to become an industry requirement. A new facility will provide adequate space and storage for this.
The location of the proposed new development will be opposite Ballaglea Farm House which was the original farm accommodation for this site, on the main Ballamodha Straight, which offers a large site where equine, farm vehicles and animals can access the practice easily and conveniently.
Other facilities IOM The following figures are from the RCVS Practices register.
*No of vets = Full Time Equivalent
North IOM
East IOM
South IOM
West IOM
We already have an experienced team which is growing and maintaining a well-equipped, future driven, reliable service on the island and wish to grow the independent service, incorporating as many local employment opportunities and generating an interest in the veterinary service.
Number of potential clients
As well as the Parish of Malew, there are other parishes that would greatly benefit from an equine and farm vet practice in this location, including Rushen, Arbory, Patrick, Santon, Braddan, German, and further north with only a 30 minute travel time, where there are currently large numbers of clients.
Equine
The following map shows locations of liveries and stables on the Island, PLUS our new site and whilst there are clearly some commercial operations in the north of the Island, the south seems to have a higher proportion of stables and livery. This map has been collated from online exploration of stables and liveries on the island as well as support from the knowledge of locations among the Strand Vets team.
This map identifies the ‘New Site’ and a 30 minute travel time for potential clients. This map does not show the smaller stables that are privately owned and possibly house 2 to 4 animals all owned by individuals. We are seeing a continued increase of equine registrations and owners are enquiring about the availability of more complex treatments on Island. We are identifying missed opportunities for animal owners who have to make desperate decisions that would normally be accommodated for in the UK but due to the travelling on a boat, distance, time elements, this can put the animal welfare at risk and can mean the animal is destroyed rather than treated. A secondary benefit of this new site is that the traffic into the existing site within the residential area of Port Erin is impossible and large farm vehicles cannot get access to the existing site. Another factor in the need for a new facility stems from the success of Strand Vets. The recent growth seen by the practice due to taking on many new clients has increased the need for more space. With growth has come a significant halt in staff numbers over the last 2 years as the existing facilities are working at maximum capacity.
Livestock
With the closing of another local farm animal service provider, we have had an influx of farm registrations from all over the island. Ballaglea is ideal as a central base for this is needed, with the added ability to treat livestock in a safe, sterile clinical environment should it be needed.
1 Diary Calf Births Report
Beef Calf Births Report
Small Animal
Although we are mainly looking at Equine and Livestock in this practice there will be room for expansion for advanced small animal services which are currently not available on island eg CT scanning.
What happens if the development is not approved?
Strand Veterinary Practice has unfortunately been unable to secure a property that is suitable due to location, access, size of existing or potential buildings and land.
The practice will continue to lose veterinary opportunity to establish a well-coordinated Equine and Livestock practice that could also be utilised as an on island referral and training centre for future vets, nursing staff, farming conferences, equine wellbeing training.
The island community will be disappointed and they will continue to have to choose between putting animals into a disadvantaged situation, loss of animals that could be saved, destroying animals for financial reasons or shipping to UK in a poor health state.
We have explored and tried to expand on other occasions. There were opportunities to acquire property in built up areas but this would not provide suitable access for large vehicles associated with farm and equine services and traffic could be considered unneighborly.
We are already working in a building which has met maximum capacity.
1 https://www.gov.im/categories/business-and-industries/agriculture/cattle/cattle-births-data/
Redundancy of existing buildings – why are they not being used for agriculture?
The land was purchased as a ten-acre plot which is too small for a working farm to be of value and generating a functional income
There is no living accommodation for a farming opportunity (the living accommodation across the road which was the original part of the farm was separated).
The agricultural buildings and the aged, degrading concrete base are beyond reasonable repair. Demonstration of harm
Strand Vets have provided a ‘Preliminary Ecological Appraisal Report – By Manx Wildlife Trust (April 2022) and Transport Assessment Report – by HMTC, as part of our application.
Alternative locations (land designated for development rather than in countryside)
The practice has been looking for a new site for this development for over 9 years now. Given that equine and farm animal hospitals require significant land and space for grazing, paddocks, stables, and specialist areas to monitor them during treatment (trot-ups, menages, lunges etc), the required site needs to be in a rural area, and thus similar facilities are usually located on disused farmland.
Strand vets have struggled to find a suitable site that allows for this space for all veterinary services (including small animal) and therefore considered splitting the small animal facility out so to at least grow that aspect of the business and deliver those services to the island in the meantime. The practice made significant progress with two prior sites for this facility in Douglas and Port St Mary. However, both of these met planning and building complications due to re-commissioning them to veterinary services. Therefore, when Strand Vets came across the Ballaglea site, it was deemed to offer everything the practice needed (see list below). Furthermore, with professional guidance it was considered that this would be more relevant to the needs of the Veterinary practice and that it can sustain the ‘three’ veterinary services in one place, which is meeting the general consensus of the Islands community and our current clients. Thus Strand Vets purchased the Ballaglea site.
Strand Location Choice:
Alternative locations: Village / Town / Trading Estate?
Strand Vets considered several alternative sites and the following reasons prevented purchasing specific sites:
Client Values
Strand Vets pride themselves on being independent, their staff and clients value the innovation, flexibility and personal service this enables them to offer.
Although Strand Vets are looking to expand, they remain, and will remain an independently run, privately owned practice, with their proposed expansion driven by a real desire to improve their services to existing and future clients through a new purpose built, designated equine and farm animal veterinary facility on the proposed site, which is ideally situated for this use and located centrally to their existing client base as proven.
Ciara Tinkler BVM&S MRCVS
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