A politician who has been critical of the promenade regeneration fiasco has said a change in the minister would only be a distraction.

Throughout the year, civil servants and spokesmen of the Department of Infrastructure have said the horse trams were prioritised because of ’contractual obligations’.

However as revealed on the front page of this week’s Examiner, it has finally admitted it has no obligations to operate the horse trams.

Douglas East MHK Chris Robertshaw told iomtoday.co.im that replacing Ray Harmer as minister ’would be a distraction from a much more serious issue’.

Mr Robertshaw added: ’Replacing the minister may act as something of a catharsis after such a dreadful first year of the project but would do nothing to address the deep underlying problems that exist and which are the root cause of the concerns bedeviling the promenade works.’

He said the soon to be released report into the DoI’s harbour strategy will show ’exactly the same root causes as are evident in the failures to competently deliver the promenade scheme thus far’.

Clare Barber, also Douglas East, said ’the comparisons are stark’ between the schemes.

She added: ’The Council of Ministers must sit together as a whole to resolve this issue as a matter of urgency, both to resolve the underlying failures of government to work effectively cross-departmentally and the matter of compensating businesses for the damage caused by that failure to date.

’The matter of the horse tram contract is a detail within a wider failure - my understanding is there were contractual obligations, however these were not between the DoI and the contractor, rather they were between the hoteliers and the travel companies.

’A more comprehensive project impact assessment alongside functional project management would have identified and resolved these problems.’

Middle MHK Bill Shimmins said the horse tram prioritisation ’has caused additional delays and costs to the works’ and that the ’DoI has an internal conflict of interest’.

He added: ’The Heritage Railways section of Infrastructure is understandably keen to increase the horse tram passenger volumes whilst the Highways section of Infrastructure is tasked with delivering the promenade redevelopment within time and on budget.

’Even if there was a contractual commitment to the tour organisers to provide a run on the horse trams, which has now been confirmed is not the case, an alternative option could have been negotiated/provided to enable the prom works to proceed uninhibited by the running of the horse trams.’

Lawrie Hooper (Ramsey) added: ’Getting the problems fixed is more important than apportioning blame.

’The matter of how the DoI have attempted to justify the continuation of the horse trams during the construction works is perhaps a different matter - as it speaks to a lack of transparency from the department.’