A committee exploring the government’s harbour strategy believes it was ’premature’ to present it to Tynwald.

The first report from the environment and infrastructure policy review committee, chaired by Marlene Maska MLC, will be presented to Tynwald when it sits next week.

In its report, the committee has recommended the Council of Ministers should appoint a body to conduct a strategic review of the island’s harbours and options for their future development up to 2050.

The committee’s report said this is because members ’do not believe the Department of Infrastructure has the capacity to make strategic decisions’ of the nature that would see £70m of tax payers’ money being spent to upgrade Douglas Harbour. A further £10m is needed for ’urgent maintenance’ of the harbour.

Proposals for the £70m scheme include a 240m deep water berth at Victoria Pier which would be used to grow the island’s cruise ship economy and would be on the north or outer side of the pier which usually berths the Manannan.

Maintenance

The work would be done alongside what the DoI said was ’urgent’ maintenance work on the pier. The department said ’by spending some extra money a deep water facility could be developed at the same time for use by cruise vessels’.

This has been criticised by the committee, which said in its report that the DoI is looking at developing a berth for the current generation of cruise ships and is not looking at the future market as vessel size around the British Isles is getting larger.

The committee said the proposal is ’based on cost avoidance and as a result does not look to the future’ and that the cruise berth development plans ’need to be separated from Douglas Harbour maintenance costs so it can be fully compared to other options’.

Members added: ’The determination to focus on cruise ships through the Victoria Pier proposal means other opportunities have been closed off and not fully considered. The lack of consideration of resilience further highlights the lack of strategic thinking within the strategy.’

While accepting the need to spend the £10m on maintenance and upgrade costs such as the Victoria Pier linkspan, the committee said it ’would be unwise to spend circa £70m on the plans for the rest of Douglas Harbour without having first reconsidered the options’.

The committee’s report added: ’We do not believe that the Department of Infrastructure has the capacity to make strategic decisions of this nature. We believe that the task would be best tackled by a body removed from day-to-day operations.

’For this reason we recommend that the Council of Minister should engage a strategically-focused body to conduct a strategic review of the island’s harbours and options for further development.’

Long-term

It stated the review should focus on ’the resilience and the long-term future of the island’s harbour’, rather than ’nonessential facilities for cruise ships, as was the case with the harbours strategy’.

In its second recommendation, the committee argued that the DoI ’should focus on progressing maintenance works for Douglas Harbour as a matter of urgency’.