Contractors should have been brought in at an earlier stage on the Prom scheme to ’flush out’ problem areas.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Baker, giving evidence to a Tynwald scrutiny committee, was asked what he would have done differently if he could start the £25m project again.

Mr Baker replied: ’That could take a while!’

He said the significant degree of disruption from the scheme should have been better expected.

And he said it would have benefited from a longer period of contractor involvement at the start of the scheme.

Mr Baker agreed with his department’s chief executive Nick Black that this may not have brought forward the completion date but things might have gone smoother.

He said: ’Sometimes it’s wiser to step back. Not enough time was given to that. It may have flushed out more issues had we given more time for that.’

Mr Baker said there was a number of things ’we learned as we had gone along’ including challenges around communication and engagement but ’we’ve got to a far, far better place with those things’.

As previously reported on iomtoday, the Minister admitted that the Prom scheme will likely not meet its ’ambitious’ March 31 completion deadline.

Mr Black said work on a resin injection solution to the problem of concrete cracking had begun and he hoped it would be satisfactory and ’give us the longevity we want’.

He was asked about the horse tramline crossing the road at the Esplanade and how it was being laid as a double track in an apparent divergence from the planning consent, which shows two tracks ’interlaced’.

Mr Black replied: ’I’m not sure I quite understand what you mean. We have a section of interlaced track there where the dual track comes into one to move across round Broadway.’

He promised to provide a detailed written response, saying: ’If it looks wrong we will explain what’s changed. We have been engaging with the railway safety inspector.’