Juan Turner has hit out at the Department of Infrastructure after his departure was announced on Friday.

The MLC spoke candidly to the Isle of Man Examiner about disagreements with the department over transport, parking, Douglas promenade, sea services, the Road Races Bill, the Highways Bill, the road safety division and transferring functions to local authorities.

He said he was told if he didn’t support the Douglas promenade scheme he could not remain in the department.

The move came after Mr Turner criticised his department in that morning’s Manx Independent and online here on iomtoday.

Mr Turner hit out over accusations of poor attendance from Mr Gawne, saying: ‘That is nonsense. My attendance was never questioned until a few days ago. In reality some officers of the department may have wished I didn’t attend a lot more often!’

He said: ‘The DoI is failing to serve the public and only serving itself. In fairness some of that is the fault of the budgeting system, where Treasury rule with the iron rod and the DoI is forced to meet income targets – the only way they can do that is to hammer the public.

‘The current promenade scheme appeared out of nowhere. We had a scheme consulted upon in the last quarter of 2014, yet we were called to a meeting out of the blue, consultants were present and a whole new “shared space” scheme had appeared. I raised a number of concerns and said I didn’t favour any of it as the previous scheme I thought ticked all the boxes.

‘I was told that by not supporting this new scheme, I didn’t support innovation and progress and that this was happening and if I didn’t support it I could not remain in the department, to which I said “well so be it then”.’

On parking Mr Turner said: ‘The consultation they put out was cherry-picked and they used only provisions that suited the department. The promenade parking, the residents’ permit charges and the reduction of disc zones were all part of this and a number were U-turned on.

‘I also object to the ever-increasing road tax as this is having an effect on business and individuals who rely on a vehicle. The ideology that we will all be forced onto public transport is a nonsense, though I do support the efforts made to modernise the bus system with smart cards.’

Mr Turner is concerned about the Road Races Bill too.

‘I said that legislation should not go out to public consultation until we have it agreed by the department – in other words we know clearly what we are consulting on.’

He said civil servants were pushing it through to meet their own agendas.

‘They also refused to include the provision I wanted for the department to exclude persons with serious convictions, including sexual offences, from being TT marshals but instead wanted the organisers to use discretion. They said it might affect the TT – so they are happy for violent and sexual offenders to be in a position of power and trust.

‘The Department of Home Affairs would not license a convicted person as a security official for events and bars, so why would you give a warrant to a sex offender or someone convicted of violent crime?’

The MLC is also critical the user agreement with the Steam Packet.

He described the transfer of the road safety division of the DoI to the police as a raid on the budget.

‘Again none of that was discussed in the department until we found out on the day the move was happening! Another example of members not being part of the decision making process.

‘I didn’t agree with transferring function to local authorities either as the taxpayers/ratepayers will be paying twice.

‘It is inevitable this will impact on rates going forward. Fragmenting services can only be inefficient and government policy is to centralise to get a better price.’

As featured in IOM Today