Just hours after politician Tim Crookall said that there had been no bus service cancellations over the TT, Isle of Man Transport announced a lot of bus service cancellations.
Mr Crookall answered questions in the House of Keys today about bus services during TT week.
His assertion that he ‘believed’ there had been no cancellations has been met with surprise among many.
Mr Crookall was speaking in the House of Keys this morning as infrastructure minister.
In the hours since he spoke, he has switched jobs to become minister for enterprise.
While Isle of Man Transport had stopped updating social media during TT with information about bus services, at 2.35pm it posted about the service, explaining its problems.
The post reads:
Due to exceptionally high levels of driver sickness (including eight now off with Covid), as well as our ongoing recruitment issues, we are struggling to cover some services for this afternoon.
Please note our essential services such as schools are fully sustained.
Although our dedicated team are working exceptionally hard to deal with these problems, in the short term we know these issues will not be rectified quickly, so over the last few weeks we have been working on a contingency bus timetable. More information will be announced on this timetable in the next week.
In the meantime any services at risk of cancellations will be announced at 17:30 each evening, to cover the next morning and then again at 10:00 to cover services until 17:30.
Rest assured our team are doing their very best to keep our services running as effectively as possible. Thank you for your continued patience and we understand and apologise for the inconvenience caused.
The following services are at risk of cancellation today:
11A 14:41 Loch Prom – Hailwood – Lord Street
5 14:47 Lord Street – House of Mannanan
14 14:50 Lord Street – Castletown
2 15:07 Loch Prom – Ballachrink
6A 15:25 House of Mannanan – Lord Street
2A 15:27 Ballachrink – P.Erin
1 15:35 Lord Street –P. Erin
1A 16:25 Lord Street- P.Erin
25H 16:30 Lord Street - Nobles
11A 16:42 P.Erin – Vic Street
2A 16:50 Lord Street – P. Erin
2 17:01 P.Erin – Vic Street
11 17:31 P.Erin – Lord Street
5 17:45 Nobles – Lord Street
2 18:01 Lord Street – Lord Street
11 18:10 Lord Street – P.Erin
1 18:25 P.Erin – Hailwood Ave
5 19:07 Lord Street - Ramsey
2A 19:04 P.Erin – Ballachrink Shop
3 19:10 Lord Street - Ramsey
11 19:24 Lord Street – P.Erin
1 19:43 Hailwood Ave – P.erin
3 20:10 Ramsey – Lord Street
2A 20:20 Ballachrink – P.Erin
1 20:25 P.Erin – Vic Street
5J 20:44 Ramsey – Lord Street
2A 21:04 P.Erin – Ballachrink
21H 21:05 Lord Street – Crescents – Hospital – Lord Street
6A 21:07 Lord Street - Ramsey
11 21:35 P.Erin – Vic Street
5 22:07 Lord Street – Peel
2A 22:20 Ballachrink – Lord Street
11 22:35 Loch Prom – Hailwood Ave – Banks Circus
6A 22:45 Peel – Lord Street