Public transport bosses say they were not prepared to cancel tram services at short notice to allow a stage of Rally Isle of Man to go ahead.
Stage six of the event, centred on Maughold, was to have taken place last Friday morning. But rally organisers cancelled it after they failed to secure agreement to suspend Manx Electric Railway operations.
Director of public transport Ian Longworth said: ‘The rally organiser arranged an approach with the department to run the rally event whilst the trams were operating.
‘On Wednesday night, the organiser decided they could not honour the agreement they had made with the department. They wanted IoM Transport to cancel tram services at the last moment including several group bookings that had been taken. IoM Transport was not prepared to do this.’
Nick Black, chief executive of the Department of Infrastructure said as part of the road closure order, it had been agreed by rally organisers and the public transport division to jointly man all rail crossing points.
He said: ‘We booked staff for this and made amendments to schedules to minimise disruption.
‘The Director of Highways took a call on Wednesday night from the organisers asking for a full suspension of tram services rather than the agreed manned crossing approach. We quickly realised that we had a number of group bookings on Friday morning and decided that we could not suspend services.
‘We cannot choose between visitors who have booked for the railway and visitors who have booked for the rally. We could have either changed the timetable if we had been asked in good time or they could have chosen a time when there are no services.’