As Tynwald prepares to vote next week to give the go ahead for a £20M+ road resurfacing scheme - current member for Peel and Glenfaba, Cambridge educated Infrastructure Minister Raymond Harmer (49), set out the case to MTV's Paul Moulton.
No one questions the need to "get on" with repairing Douglas Promenade for it is, more than 30 years after the transfer of its maintenance from Douglas Corporation to the Highway Board (forerunner of Mr Harmer's DoI), a national disgrace.
It is however the proposal to abandon 1/3 of the iconic Horse Tramway that interested Mr Moulton, a proposal which Mr Harmer sought to justify…
As they say - you could not make this up…
MOULTON: Mr Harmer’s with us at our briefing. Well, you do the prom up, you’ve got everyone going ‘whoopee do’, even though its going to last only a couple of years, but action - in there straight away. And (laughs) you’re tackling the horse trams already (more laughter). I mean… This’ll get viewing figures like you can’t believe - they always do. But seriously, you’ve gone for another option, really, I mean this is… Well, over to you. You tell us what you propose.
HARMER: Well.. Lets… if you… start back one step, the main key thing about the December Tynwald about the prom is getting the prom work done, and getting construction work done and that is fundamental that we need to do that and get a decision so that we can bring a financial motion early next year and we can then move forward with the design. So, the key thing there is all about the fact that we’re keeping it simple for the most part and having the twin tracks down the middle so that we can... retain and move forward and get a project that’s working. So that is the fundamental issue as far as I’m concerned and moving that forward...
MOULTON: So that after all of the consultation, everything that’s gone out, double tracks in the middle, BUT not all the way.
HARMER: No. Because... there’s a couple of elements that we can retain. One of the key things and it is a difficult piece because not everybody is going to be satisfied because you have got cars, you’ve got cyclists, runners, the horse trams, parking, retail issues, the Douglas Master Plan, traffic flows. But if we can take through a… forward I would say a sensible way... principles, we can actually get some really good wins on those. So for example: taking the traffic flows. By not having, what you are leading to about the horse trams for the full length, allows us to get those traffic flows right on the southern end of the prom, Greensill’s Corner also with Broadway as well.
MOULTON: So let’s explain, you’re going from the original point at the Summerland end but going only as far as the War Memorial/Sefton/Gaiety?
HARMER: That’s absolutely correct and with a piece of design that if you take a single track, probably from Broadway through into Villa/Gaiety, that whole space then becomes a cultural area. Becomes a… Right OK.
MOULTON: Twin track as far as Broadway, then single track that last leg?
HARMER: Yes. So the reason for that is … the reason for that - and that’s why we’ve said a double track all the way to Broadway, is that allows the design to be simple and going forward, that if we want to improve the junctions at Broadway and we want to improve the junctions at Greensill’s…
MOULTON: You can’t have a roundabout then can you, if you’re going to keep them [horse trams] in the middle is that right?
HARMER: If you keep them in the middle point, so at that point that is where if we, if we take the double tracks…
MOULTON: Yes...
HARMER: ... to that point, we then… draw down into a single track potentially to a terminus at that end at the Villa Gaiety.
MOULTON: So what happens at Broadway because I think it's one place in the world that’s crying out for a roundabout rather than traffic lights - that’s my view because I use it all the time.
HARMER: That’s absolutely right, so you could put… a roundabout at Broadway, roundabout at Greensill’s, you could improve traffic flow, you may even have traffic flow that goes in through the Victoria Road rather than through the prom. So we can design that up whilst we’re building the core part of the promenade. So that’s why we’re getting the principles in place...
MOULTON: So lets say its going there. So you’ll rip up the tracks on the remainder all the way up to the Sea Terminal? They will be be ripped up and gone and gone forever?
HARMER: Well, no. We’ll allow for the possibility that they could come back…
MOULTON: You’re going to take them up?
HARMER: We’re going to take them up..
MOULTON: So they have gone? So they have gone...
HARMER: They have gone, but in this we’re looking at the whole concept... We’re challenging the constraints. And I think it's the absolute right thing to do, because at the end of the day, taking the people who operate the trams at the moment, we’re gaining nothing by going that extra piece. We’re able to gain, you know, improve our passengers...
MOULTON: Some people say at the end of the day, almost joining up the whole thing, the electric, the MER, going along the prom. OK you’ve got this walk along to the steam train but there’s potential in the future... but once that’s gone it has gone? And you know, you’ve lost that potential...
HARMER: There’s other possible future options…
MOULTON: We all know that when its gone its gone. Certainly in the lifetime of five years. Its not going to come back...
HARMER: In… Obviously at the moment… with the works which are going ahead its a five year project, so yes would be in that five years…
MOULTON: Now, traffic flow. How can it help traffic flow when, seriously, a bus or anything like that can’t get through when a horse tram's running? I think most of the prom - there’s a little bit more leeway, I’ll give you that, on that bit towards Summerland, but overall a nervous driver can’t get through there and everything just snarls up.
HARMER: Its about balance isn’t it? And this is why... where I talk to the horse tram side it's difficult because if you want for example, the horse tram for the whole full length OK, then lets just drill down into those options a little bit. The first option is down the centre. The second option is along the side - the seaward side. A single track. But in operating that as a single track you use up so much space with the new regulations you lose nearly if it went all the way along the promenade along the side you’d lose somewhere between 270 or more depending on on the options, of parking spaces. When you have a single track, unless you implement a number of passing places, you don’t get the service of 15 minutes, which is what we’re trying to aim with the horse trams and actually make it a service which is realistic and actually works. So... that then limits the options as to having them as a single track. So in order to retain them all…
MOULTON: So it's cost millions of pounds what you’ve just said there by the way hasn’t it? Millions of pounds in different studies to come up with X and Y and after all that - ripped up and you’ve gone for ‘lite’ - you’ve got “Horse Trams Lite” haven’t you?
HARMER: No because I think actually, if you link it with the MER, you’re effectively allowing, potentially can allow the MER to come all the way into the Villa, the Villa…
MOULTON : Ah! So you might get electrics on that?
HARMER: Exactly. And we’re actually expanding the options and actually putting something that will actually go forward with, in my view and in the Department’s view, is that actually that is a more sustainable way forward for the horse trams.
MOULTON: So here’s you idea. Basically therefore you’re also admitting here that the government is going to stay - own some horse trams - for the foreseeable future. You, as government, is going to run that service..
HARMER: That... Well... whether its government in a few years time… that’s a whole bigger piece about heritage railways but, is/are horse trams one part of that important mix of electric, steam railway and the mountain railway? Well absolutely yes.
MOULTON: And you’re confident about losing money on that operation? You never see it making money or breaking even at all - it ran a lot longer this year so that seems to...
HARMER: And the figures are better, but I mean this is the key bit that needs to be understood. Because of the structure of the house in the Strathallan building, things like that, that is why, quite rightly in my opinion, you know Douglas said well, you know, the ratepayers have taken this for quite some time. Its no longer a commuter service, we need to understand its not a commuter service. Its a heritage railway. So if we are, if Tynwald makes the call and says actually no, you know what? We think its absolutely vital that the horse trams are the full length of the prom...
MOULTON: They’ve kind of said that already haven’t they?
HARMER: Well yes, and we’re challenging that. Its a different Tynwald - twelve new members.
MOULTON: What did you say last time?
HARMER: Well, I actually said the full length.
MOULTON: So you’re now going against your own advice?
HARMER: Not against my own advice. From what… from having looked at the fundamental issues, because we were talking about cyclists, runners and all of those kind of things, when you take all of those bits together, I’m passionate about the horse trams but something has to give and that...
MOULTON: What’s the timescale on this? Come on… is it going to be done? You’re whizzing along with so many other things, is this one that’s going to happen straight away?
HARMER: Its going to happen provided, Tynwald give us the go ahead with these principles, we can then move ahead and...
MOULTON: When?
HARMER: This… In 2017
MOULTON: The winter of… So next summer will…
HARMER: It will be after the Grand Prix.
MOULTON: The next summer will run as is?
HARMER: As is...
MOULTON: Two lanes all the way along..
HARMER: And then from…
MOULTON: And you can do it all in the winter so it won’t lose the service the summer after?
HARMER: I mean it's those sort of options we’re looking at but what will probably happen is that you’ll have to have a reduced service of the horse trams for those three or four years.
MOULTON: You’re going to have to hope this honeymoon period is going to keep lasting aren’t you, in Tynwald because, you know, this just keeps going back into the melting pot, because there are going to be so many different views on this? And you now - this is completely a new one again! Well, I’m calling it “horse trams lite” but you’re not, but...
HARMER: No. I think its “horse trams actually for the future”. Its horse trams being sustainable, and I’m very passionate about this, because at the end of the day, you know we have to make a call. OK? And if the decision is to keep pushing and pushing for this… We’ve already decided on the solution, the full length, and whatever goes that must be it. Then other things will give, and my… What we’re trying to do is to actually say… no, this is really important, as far as Tynwald is concerned, as far as people, to get the political thing right before we do the design, and that’s why we’ve done it this way. Because it could have been let’s do another design, lets spend another million or two million… We’ve said actually, let’s test the political water for what is actually wanted as the right way forward, and then build the design.
MOULTON: What's happening to all the track you bought, not you but the Department has already got, are you going to lay new track or leave the old track there?
HARMER: No, it will be new track because it will be for the future potential of the light railway or for MER.