The Infrastructure Minister this week said funding for the remaining length of horse tram tracks won’t be sought for the ’next year or two’.

In a House of Keys sitting on Tuesday, Tim Crookall was asked about the current state of the Douglas Promenade tramway and what plans the Department of Infrastructure has to reinstate the lines from the War Memorial to the Sea Terminal.

He said the budget allocated for the project in the ’pink book’ wasn’t enough to build the tramway to the full length of the prom and it would cost another £1.5 million on top of the £1.2 million already spent to complete it.

In the last administration, the lines south of Broadway were removed from the current contract due to these budget pressures.

Mr Crookall added that he was not prepared to bring the work on the rest of the tram lines forward over ’the next year or maybe two years’.

He said: ’Given the amount of work that has gone on on the prom and the disruption of the last three years, I think we need time to settle down and when we do go back to do that there may well be other works that need doing to put things right.’

Garff MHK Daphne Caine asked about the horse tram services in 2022.

Mr Crookall said: ’The horse tramway is expected to operate between Derby Castle and Broadway in 2022 subject to its completion.’

He added that a new set of points were due in beginning of March but they’ve been delayed by another two weeks.

’It will put the horse trams back by another couple of weeks,’ Mr Crookall said.

’As regarding the start date [this year] for the trams, I have no idea at this time, things have been put back two weeks, and I’ve said in previous questions there’s some training of the horses to be done.’

He estimated ’end of June, probably beginning of July’ as a start date for the coming season’s horse trams.

Mrs Caine pointed out ’significant corrections’ had been made to the works already done, including a replacement set of points on Broadway and the need for small grooves to be cut along the full length of rail already in place.

She described this as a ’series of repeated sabotage against the horse trams’ which stem ’from a lack of knowledge’.

She asked if the minister’s department really wanted to complete the work or if it was trying to sabotage itself.

Mr Crookall said he could understand people’s frustration towards the situation, as work had been put back another two weeks.

Douglas Central MHK Chris Thomas asked if the minister could clarify if it was an overspend. Mr Crookall said: ’It is an overspend, I’m happy to agree with that, and so the project was descoped.’

He added: ’The reinstatement of the sea terminal will be subject to an application for funding through the Tynwald budget process.’