There’s confusion over the costs to complete the horse tramway - with one backbench MHK claiming it was ’verging on the improper’.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Baker pledged to clarify the funding situation before Tynwald is asked to approve up to £1.2m earmarked for the line’s extension south to the Sea Terminal.

The line had been due to temporarily terminate at the War Memorial while the main Prom scheme is completed this summer. But Mr Baker told the House of Keys that this was not going to be possible and instead it will temporarily end at the bottom of Broadway on the seaward side of the Prom.

He said at this stage his department had not put together cost estimates for the remaining works planned beyond the summer and they will go out to tender before Tynwald funding approval is sought in November.

Chris Robertshaw (Douglas East) pointed out that if the tramway south to the Sea Terminal had been ’taken out of scope’ then so should the budget for it which Tynwald had already approved. He said Tynwald was being asked to vote for that money again and it must have been spent elsewhere.

’This is a very confusing and most unsatisfactory position that Tynwald finds itself in, in having to vote for one item twice unnecessarily and not really getting the full analysis of the overspend in other areas,’ said Mr Robertshaw.

’This is highly unsatisfactory and in terms of the way monies are voted, verging on the improper.’

Mr Baker replied: ’I don’t accept any suggestion of impropriety. There is an element of confusion - I will grant that.

’I would like to come back to members with some clarification around the budgeting side of this.’

Mr Baker said he was not sure it was the case that the single-track extension was built into the budget approved by Tynwald in the first place.

Julie Edge (Onchan) insisted the scheme for a single-track line to the Sea Terminal was voted on by Tynwald on July 18, 2017.

’There is no reason why that funding should not still be sitting there,’ she said, adding that she would like to see a transparent breakdown on the spending originally approved to show where the funding has gone. Mr Baker said he was ’quite happy to clarify the financial position’.