The horse trams will begin officially operating this week.

Department of Infrastructure member Kerry Sharpe MLC said that following the training of the horses and the ‘preoperational cleaning of the rail grinding’, the horse tram season would launch during the summer’s Manx Heritage Transport Festival.

The festival begins tomorrow (Wednesday).

She said: ‘It is envisaged that the horse tram season will launch during this summer’s transport festival which will take place from July 27 to 31.

‘This looked very doubtful at one point this year but a lot of effort and teamwork behind the scenes has made it possible.’

Mrs Sharpe added that the tracks had been approved for passenger operations by the inspector of railways.

This was in response to a question posed to her by Garff MHK Daphne Caine in the Tynwald sitting last week.

She wanted to know what progress had been made with the reinstallation of the tram track and when the horse trams would operate.

She also pointed out that the tracks only ran to the bottom of Broadway on Douglas Promenade, when the initial plan was to run them all the way to the War Memorial.

Mrs Caine asked when the tracks would be completed to the full length of the promenade and how much it would cost the taxpayer, to which Mrs Sharpe responded that she didn’t have those details.

She said: ‘I would agree personally that there’s no point having half a tramtrack. If you’re not going to go the full way, why bother? I can’t comment on the current policy.’