Demolition of two historic Manx Electric Railways buildings has caused a storm of anger from the MER Society.

The two buildings, next to the railway terminus in Ramsey, were pulled down during the run up to Christmas.

Members of the MER Society, which is a kind of fan club for the railway, have described the demolition of the old tram depot and goods shed as vandalism and say it robs Ramsey of historic MER buildings.

A group spokesman said: ’This ruthless action has destroyed the last significant original MER building in Ramsey and has been done without any public debate.

’It is a calculated and un-democratic action designed to leave no alternative to a hidden agenda, determined at public cost, behind closed doors, and secretly resurrected when it was believed to be dead. It demonstrates that the MER is by no means safe under the Department of Infrastructure.’

The group believes work was timed to attract least attention and that it was done to open the way to develop the station site perhaps by resurrecting the 2015 plan for a combined bus and tram transport interchange.

At the time, the plan was rejected by planners who described it as ’visually intrusive’, adding it would cause ’significant harm to the character and appearance of the area’.

The society spokesman noted the 1903 goods shed was formerly the MER museum and was said to have an assured future as a youth centre.

’We were told it was safe but no-one bothered to list it and unfortunately it was pulled down,’ said Julian Nutter, a member of the MER Society.

A correspondent to the letters page in this week’s Isle of Man Examiner, Sara Goodwins, bemoans the new layout of the station in Ramsey, which she says is ’awful’.

’Trams abandon their passengers on a gravel platform (not very wheelchair or pushchair-friendly) with no shelter, no information or ticket point, no bench or loos,’ she writes.

A spokesman for the Department of Infrastructure said there were no plans to reinstate the failed 2015 plan for Ramsey station. In February, DoI minister Ray Harmer told Keys he planned a ’more modest’ scheme than that originally proposed for the Ramsey bus and tram station.

A DoI statement said the buildings were ’beyond economic repair’ and at the ’end of their operational lives’, as well as being on unstable ground.

’The department has no intention of introducing a new urban light railway style Manx Electric Railway,’ it said.