Earlier in the week we reported on the £500,000 loss made by the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway but after further discussions in the local media – along with comments on the news story – it has now been confirmed that the operating loss was in fact £206,612. The discrepancies in figures is down to the amount of investment which had to go in to purchasing various items from Douglas Borough Council, previous owners and operators of the tramway.
The latest figures have shown that running costs of the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway in 2017 was £349,315 (taking off the capital expenditure) with £142,703 generated in revenue. This gives the operating loss of £206,612 which, although not an insignificant figure, is a much better idea of the current state of operations.
Following on from the release of these figures Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer has even gone as far as suggesting that of all the heritage systems on the Isle of Man the Horse Tramway is the most likely to turn an operating profit in future years, although he didn’t go into any details as to why this would be the case.
In other news from the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway one of the Trammers has sadly passed away. Ian, a 17 year old Clydesdale, died overnight last weekend and following a post-mortem the cause of death was confirmed as a twisted bowel (Colic). Rest in peace, Ian.
And the accounts for this year will look even worse with having had to pay Douglas Council £600k for the Stables! Douglas Council has “conned” the best part of £1m out of the IoM Government for being relieved of bearing the annual running cost of the Tramway! Talk about winning! It may be legally correct but Morally very wrong they should have had the decency just to hand it over to the government. Over here there would be some sort of enquiry into the local government in such a situation.