A newly-formed lobby group says it has ’serious concerns’ about the ’strategic vulnerablility’ of Douglas port.

Isle of Man Maritime Ltd, a not-for-profit company which has replaced the Isle of Man Shipping Association, points out the harbour is too small to handle the larger roll-on, roll-off vessels that are now the norm.

And it says there is no contingency plan should there be a serious incident in the harbour which blocks it to other sea traffic.

It issued the statement after Tynwald last month backed an £80m strategy to redevelop Douglas harbour and attract more cruise liners to the island.

The Shipping Association had proposed a £35m-40m scheme for a fixed deep water landing stage on the seaward-side of the breakwater that protects Douglas harbour.

But the government’s scheme is more modest with a £11m, 240m deep water berth alongside an extended Victoria Pier for visiting cruise vessels. Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer insisted he wasn’t ruling out investment in a larger facility if the cruise business take off.

Lars Ugland of Isle of Man Maritime Ltd says it is vital the Manx government makes the right decision over redeveloping the harbour as the port needs to be fit for the long term future.

His new lobby group said it welcomes the plan to the develop the inner harbour.

But it says the strategy document does not adequately set out contingency plans should there be an incident in the port that would prevent ships berthing.

Another critical factor, it said, was the limited availability of vessels of a size that could be accommodated in the harbour.

Isle of Man Maritime Ltd said: ’The key consideration and concern of the executive committee when promoting development of the outer harbour plan was to provide such contingency.

’The main focus has been the opportunities in the cruise and support vessels market but the elephant in the room is the strategic vulnerability of the Douglas Port Infrastructure and the critical dependence the island has on this single harbour.’

The group said the inconvenience caused by the cancellation of sailings due to bad weather is well known - but a serious incident in the inner harbour could have a ’devastating impact’ economically and socially.

It said: ’Vessels experience accidents or mechanical failures globally and can take months to repair especially if the incident happened within the inner harbour.

’Recent minor incidents and crashes with the Manannan in August 2017 and the Ben-my-Chree in February 2017 are indicators of such risk which luckily to date have not been significant enough to jeopardise the island’s logistical supply chain.

’For this not to be adequately considered and factored into the harbour plan is of great concern.’

It added: ’The current plans seem to hope for the best rather than anticipate the unexpected.’

Isle of Man Maritime said that until relatively recently there were always small vessels available that could replace a Steam Packet ro-ro at relatively short notice.

However, today the trend is for larger vessels to be constructed.

’Therefore it would not be wise for a short-term strategy to assume the availability of a replacement given the critical nature of this lifeline to and from the island,’ it said.

In Tynwald, Mr Harmer said the planned improvements would allow Douglas harbour to handle bigger ships up to 142m in length, which is the maximum that can dock at Heysham. The current tanker jetty could also be expanded to cope with larger vessels bringing in liquid fuel and compressed gas.