MHK Calls for Bus Station Plan

An MHK wants the DoI to present plans for a new bus terminal on Lord Street by the end of the year.

Joney Faragher (Douglas East) will bring a motion to Tynwald in July that will seek to get some traction on an issue that has dogged the capital for years.

A new bus terminal, which was due to be completed by now under the original agreement the DoI signed with Lord Street Development SPV Ltd bought the land for the development.

Under the planning approval for a seven screen cinema, 80 bedroom hotel, 20 residential apartments (14 two bed and six three bed units), three restaurant/cafe units (Class 3), four retail units (Class 1), information centre, public toilets, a drivers’ welfare area, multi storey car park was granted on July 9 2019, with a condition to begin construction within four years.

However, four years on there have been no major developments on the site and no movement on a new bus station.

The June Tynwald sitting saw DoI Minister Chris Thomas quizzed on the matter, but he only really said that the owners of the site would be making announcements soon, this is despite very direct questions about when the bus station would be ready.

It seems that this was the final straw for Manx Labour Party leader Joney Faragher who said that having tried to get answers in and outside of Tynwald, it has reached the point where ‘nothing is forthcoming in terms of a plan or strategy to achieve the reinstatement of facilities for bus passengers’ so she had decided that it is ‘necessary to formally recognise this as a priority’.

Ms Faragher added: ‘We potentially need to think beyond Lord Street at this stage, as the Minister stated in Tynwald last week that the Lord St development could be years away from completion (despite its May 2023 completion deadline).’

The Motion

That Tynwald is of the opinion that the reestablishment of facilities for bus passengers in the Island’s capital city is a priority; and that accordingly the Department of Infrastructure should work up a detailed plan of how facilities – including but not limited to: route and timetable information; protection from weather; toilet services; appropriate seating; accessible Wi-Fi and availability of refreshments – will be provided; and that the Department should submit a report on its plan to Tynwald no later than the last day of December 2023.