More than 4,900 responses were received for the public consultation into the future of the island’s sea services.

The Department of Infrastructure will use the responses to help form a new user agreement with the Steam Packet.

Tynwald instructed the DoI to form a new agreement with the company within 12 months after the government bought it for £124m earlier in the year.

DoI Minister Ray Harmer MHK Said: ’The response to the survey was a record for the Isle of Man Government consultation hub and indicates clearly how important the island’s sea connections are to people.

’I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to provide their views.

’The next step will see the information collated and fed into creating a new Sea Services Agreement, along with feedback gained through focus group workshops and stakeholder meetings held over recent months.’

Among the questions in the survey was one relating to the length of time a service should take to Liverpool, seemingly to gauge the impact of removing the requirement of a fast craft service in favour of a year-round RoPax (Ben-my-Chree style vessel) service.

The consultation ran from September 21 to October 7.