Vehicles being registered for the first time in the Isle of Man will continue to be done through the Vehicle Testing Centre.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Baker came under some pressure from back bench MHKs this week to support a change in rules to allow independent garages to certify vehicles as being roadworthy.

There has been anecdotal evidence from the public that there is a wait for registering vehicles through the testing centre this year, with Mr Baker saying the average time is six weeks, but this can vary.

Bill Shimmins (Middle) asked Mr Baker whether he would consider outsourcing the testing to other garages around the island to ’clear the backlog’ and ’improve the service provided’.

Mr Baker said he was looking at how to improve the situation, but added: ’The most effective and quickest way of doing that is simply to increase the resourcing of the test centre.

’Now, that can be by recruitment, which is currently underway, but also through the flexible use of staff and I’ve asked my officers to look at opportunities around the use of, effectively bank staff and also whether there are other people within the public service who have the requisite skills and experience to provide this service.’

Clare Barber (Douglas East) told the Keys that she was aware of garages saying they were struggling to process vehicles through the test centre and that it may be impacting upon their businesses.

The Minister said the concerns were ’genuine issues’ for car dealerships in the island, particularly those selling cars second hand from the UK.

He said that ’where those issues are significant, I would suggest those businesses are impacted, they should contact the Vehicle Test Centre and make those concerns known’.

Mr Shimmins asked whether the DoI had considered allowing garages to carry out what he called ’basic checks’, saying ’this insistence in doing everything in house is just adding cost and delay our tax payers’.

Mr Baker stated the backlog was a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, combined with a ’relatively fixed capacity’ at the testing centre and that recruitment is already underway for new staff and said the DoI was seeking a ’controlled response rather than a knee-jerk reaction’.

The Minister said this year there had been 352 new cars registered for Manx roads between January and September, compared to 319 last year. However there has been a decrease in the number of second hand cars registered (1,130), down from 1,245 for the same period last year.