Under new powers, singing and shouting in the streets of Ballasalla, letting off stink bombs, playing dangerous games and loitering at the church door has been outlawed – with fines of up to £2,500 issued for any infringement

MALEW Commissioners insist they are not taking the fun out of Ballasalla!
Under-fire Malew officials have defended new by-laws for the parish which were dubbed in Tynwald as resembling something from the 'Dark Ages'.

Last week IOM Today reported that, under the new powers, singing and shouting in the streets, letting off of stink bombs, playing dangerous games and loitering at the church door had been outlawed – with fines of up to £2,500 issued for any infringement.

But Malew's parish clerk Barry Powell insisted: 'Nothing has been banned, nothing at all. There is nothing contained within these by-laws that fundamentally changes anything at all.

'Kids can go around on Hop-tu-Naa, carol singing is not banned, singing on the way home from the pub is fine. But if someone makes a complaint about a particular issue and the complaint is sufficiently justified then the by-laws give us something to back it up.

'You've got to take a commonsense view. Most of what is contained here is what you expect to see.'

Mr Powell said there had been no outbreak of anti-social disorder that had prompted the new by-laws.

He said: 'There was no pressing need to bring in these laws to target particular problems evident in Malew, but the by-laws did need updating. We had a lack of any say in local law enforcement. But there is no big problem and this does not fundamentally change the way the streets of Ballasalla are policed.

'The headlines suggest there is no fun anymore in Ballasalla. Some of the comments made in Tynwald were probably unhelpful. It's unfortunate.

'This has been on the cards for a number of years and I know other local authorities have had the same draft by-laws. It was just we were ready to put them before Tynwald. I know DLGE want to look at reviewing all local authorities' by-laws.'

He insisted that all the by-laws adopted by Malew were suggested by the DLGE.

'We've not made any changes to what the department issued to us,' said Mr Powell. 'I'm not saying there won't be any changes in the future.'