An enthusiasts’ group has warned that the Promenade improvement scheme could cause long-term damage to the horse trams and Manx Electric Railway.

The Manx Electric Railway Society has blamed the 45% drop in MER passenger numbers last year on ’poor management’ of the £25m Prom project. Horse tramway passenger numbers fell 82% in 2019.

Since its inception in 1973, the society had campaigned to keep the horse tram way open as a ’feeder’ for the MER, as well as a unique historical line in its own right.

Until last year, 50% of horse tram passengers caught the MER - and is therefore a vital source of passengers for the electric trams, said the MERS.

It said: ’The recent drop in traffic on the MER reflects both the poor appearance of the promenade last year and the curtailment of the horse line as a feeder for the MER.

’It is to be hoped that when the line eventually re-opens along its full length that traffic will recover.’

But it said a number of factors may in any event cause long-term damage to MER traffic.

The society said so-called ’improvements’ such as unsympathetic paving, traffic calming measures, removal of traditional street furniture and the fairy light festoons could undermined the appearance of the promenade conservation area.

It criticised the replacement of the track bed of the horse tramway with an ’ugly and unsympathetic’ highly coloured warning tarmac route marker.

Removal of the original horse tram depot and its replacement with an, albeit plausible, imitation, was also questioned.

And the society said the single track constriction at the Sea Terminal end of the lime may reduce the traffic that the tramway can carry.

The horse tramway is being retained as a double track in the centre of the road as far as Central Promenade but will then switched to the seaward side of the road as a single track as far as the Sea Terminal.

Last month, it emerged the highways chiefs had not factored in the cost of providing signalling for the single track section.

The MERS described this as a ’sorry tale of failure’.

But on a more positive note, the society praised the restoration to museum standard of a number of horse trams which it said may serve to increase the popularity of the line when it is running the full length of the promenade.

And it added: ’Providing the signalling issue is overcome it may also be possible to run the MER (at certain times outside the running of the horse tram timetable) down the Prom to the Sea Terminal.

’This is something which should attract new passengers for the line, enabling commuter runs without undermining the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway.’