‘Further changes to the £25m Promenade refurbishment scheme have been unveiled - with the completion date now put back to August 2021.’
“The project team outlined the revised plans to residents and businesses at a drop-in session last night (Wednesday) at the Palace Hotel.
The estimated completion date had already been put back from October 2020 to April 2021, and then June 2021. But now the planned new end date is August 17, 2021.
The further delay is the result of a decision not to work on the land side outside hotels and businesses during the summer months, from May 1 to September 1.
There’s one exception to this with work on the ’cultural area’ outside the Villa-Gaiety and the Sefton Hotel planned to take place between August next year and January 2021.
Meanwhile, the minutes of a strategic project board meeting on October 19 have been published on the myProm website.
At that stage, the works were 24 weeks behind schedule.
A period of consultation which led to the latest changes saw 140 feedback forms returned following a series of drop-in sessions.
One of the top suggestions from the feedback was not to run the horse trams next year.
But Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer MHK said he was keen they should run, providing they don’t interfere with the works.
Public transport projects manager Ian Longworth stressed the economic importance of retaining the horse tram service operation in 2020.
He said a major UK operator had 37 tours booked so far to include travel on a horse tram, representing 17,000 bed nights.
Mr Harmer felt it was important to recognise the wider benefits of the horse trams.”
Manx Radio Have also reported on the delay to the Prom works. Click HERE to view the article.