So today we learnt, in what was nearly a throwaway comment tucked away in a myprom newsletter, that ‘the horse tram line will now terminate at the War Memorial’ as opposed to the original plan, which was for a single track to continue to the Sea Terminal. This we are told, will enable work to be completed ahead of schedule.
The £25 million scheme investment by the Isle of Man Government has been a disaster from the outset, but what else do you expect when the contractor, appointed to work alongside the Department of Incompetence, is Auldyn Construction, a subsidiary of Colas who are responsible for the magnificently botched resurfacing of Richmond Hill.
It is unsurprising then that the project has been riddled with issues from the start. Cracking concrete has been a problem throughout and the lack of any coordinated approach as to which sections to work on has caused repeated delays and completion date extensions, which have come as no comfort to the many businesses already experiencing a loss of revenue as a direct result of the works.
No wonder then that the Department of Incompetence is keen to speed up the process and recoup a few pennies, before the extent of the overspend and impact on business becomes full public knowledge.
We already know that the £25 million budget conveniently excluded a cost of £1 million for signalling, signalling which coincidentally would have been required for the exact stretch of a single track which has now been scrapped. No doubt this amount will now smoothly be included in future figures and *POOF*, like magic, we can now argue we have saved £1 million whilst also being able to complete work ahead of schedule. It is utterly unbelievable.
To make matters worse, the way we have been able to implement this fundamental change to the project is quite shocking. Tynwald, having previously approved plans to reconstruct the promenade, voted in 2017 to keep the full length of the tram tacks, with an amendment passed to have a section of single track added between the War Memorial and the Sea Terminal. Yet somehow, the Department of Incompetence can overturn this parliamentary vote by adding a simple one line sentence in a newsletter.
Don’t forget, that it was the Department of Incompetence that took the ‘no longer financially viable’ and loss making Douglas Bay Horse Tramway over from Douglas Corporation in 2016, but only after significant public pressure. It seems somewhat coincidental that the very same Department now, almost covertly, and contrary to a parliamentary vote, scraps a significant section of that said Tramway, a section for which a £1 million cost was not factored into the development scheme.
The Horse Tramway represents nearly 150 years worth of history and heritage and is such a symbol of what makes our beautiful Island so special. The removal of this section in particular destroys the historic context of the Tramway being a direct link between the Sea Terminal and the Electric Railway; and for what? A bureaucratic and clandestine attempt at penny pinching.
The cost of the Horse Tramway to the taxpayer is around £400-£500 thousand a year, in comparison to the EMR and SMR which are subsidised to the annual tune of nearly £1 million. Put further into context, the entire 2020 infrastructure budget is in excess of £130 million, of which the Horse Tramways only represent less than 0.4%; not a ludicrous amount when we consider how unique this part of our heritage is. I would continue to argue, that it is even less ludicrous, when we note that the Department of Incompetence purchased nearly £300 thousand pounds worth of track last year, track that was going to be used, in part, to build a section of Tramway which they have now scrapped.
If they just stopped wasting our money, we might actually have enough left to preserve our history. For the love of our Island, don’t let this go unchallenged.
Charlton Krentz 