The Manx News broadcaster blasts the Isle of Man government for ‘incompetency, cronyism and institutional corruption.’
A former Manx politician and media boss has lambasted the Isle of Man government for a litany of failed big-money projects.
Juan Turner, who served on the Legislative Council for 11 years, accused the Tynwald of incompetency, cronyism and institutional corruption.
The Manx News CEO specifically took aim at:
- The budget-busting £71 million Liverpool ferry terminal, which is still suffering costly faults and shortfalls months after opening in the summer.
- The repeatedly bungled Lord Street development – delayed for nearly 20 years – and now at the centre of a £50 to £90 million legal claim against the Department of Infrastructure.
- The doomed development of the old Summerland site, derelict since 2006.
- The wasteland at the old St Ninian’s High School on Park Road, demolished in 2013.
Mr Turner claimed that stifled development and lack of facilities on the Island were leading to economic and population decline.
He said: ‘This is going on all the time, where they’re botching up contracts’ tenders. And whether there is somebody involved somewhere with a brown envelope, who knows? I would suggest it’s more incompetence, in honesty…..
‘I would say the bulk of it is sheer incompetence…..It’s just woeful…
‘The millions of pounds are just flowing out of that government for all sorts of botched scheme decisions. And nobody has ever held accountable….
‘There’s just no end to these things happening, and they just seem to keep bumbling from one disaster to another.’
Mr Turner was speaking to Expose.News as part of our Power & Property series, in which we investigate the complexities of the UK’s property market – and the interaction with governments – in places which are often remote or overlooked.
Expose.News readers can watch the full interview with Juan Turner here.
Last year, Expose.News revealed the bureaucratic nightmare behind the Lord Street development in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man.
Mr Turner said: ‘Lord Street is just continuing to be an embarrassment to the town centre with regard young people, there’s an often cry that there’s nothing here to do.’
The Department of Infrastructure is now being sued for between £50 and £90 million after developers North Quay Consortium represented by Sondica accused the DoI of malfeasance in public office, which the office denies or does not admit.
Mr. Turner added: ‘I think with regard to the Lord Street case, if what you’re saying is that they accepted a tender, and then changed their mind, that doesn’t surprise me one bit.’
In the case of the Sondica legal action, the Isle of Man’s Department of Infrastructure employed consultants called Lambert Smith Hampton, known widely in the property world as LSH.
Sondica claim that the DoI made unlawful efforts to persuade LSH to change the report to favour a rival bidder, which is denied.
Mr Turner criticised the culture of consultancy, which has mushroomed in government departments, leading to more red-tape, according to observers.
He added: ‘And what they’ve done is they’ve brought all these highly paid posts in, but then still go out to consultants. So, it’s very bizarre. Of course, you need consultants for certain projects. But a lot now is farmed out to consultants when really you have to ask why we’re paying the senior officials so much. ‘Surely, we’re hiring them for their expertise…Sorry, this is an island of 80,000 people. And the departments…and…the chief executives should have their fingers, on the pulse. They’re highly paid, and everything gets farmed out to consultants, vast amounts of money, even for relatively minor projects. ‘It’s astonishing the money that’s blowing out. ‘So, with regard to the scheme at Lord Street, then yes, no doubt there was a considerable (sum), and a lot of these figures are in the public record.’
Despite LSH recommending a rival bid, the site is still a carpark many years after Sondica claim they were unfairly elbowed out of the scheme, according to court documents.
Mr Turner added: ‘So they demolished it with a view to building a fantastic town centre development. But it seems to have been going on forever, and I’m almost at the stage myself, where every time somebody releases some artist’s impression, or architect’s impression, of what the site can look like, you sort of say, ‘oh, he’s another one!’ When are we ever going to see spades in the ground?….It just goes on and on and on.’
However, Lord Street was not the only site which the government had failed to deliver, according to Mr Turner.
Though the ferry terminal ballooned from £38m to £70.6m and was five years in the making, Mr Turner said: ‘The Isle of Man – Liverpool Ferry Terminal is so disgraceful. It’s funny but it’s not funny.
‘It’s an absolute scandal of the highest order. This scheme…started in my dying days in politics and I said at the time, ‘what on earth are you considering doing this for?… this is just outrageous.’ They’re not allowed freight. ‘So. to build a port where you’re not allowed freight from the get-go is shear incompetence. And now it’s built. They’ve got a very expensive tin shed that they can’t do anything with because it’s in a secure maritime area.
‘They’ve now discovered, that the new ship that the Steam Packet have purchased, that the doors don’t line up with the Liverpool landing stage.
‘So, they’ve now got to send the ship, I believe, to have another hole cut in the side to have another door for when it goes to Liverpool because the £70 million pound terminal doesn’t doesn’t line up with the doors. I mean, you can’t make this up.’
Expose.News have reached out to the Isle of Man government for a comment but have not yet received a reply.
