The Isle of Man Department of Infrastructure (DOI) has “detonated a financial bomb” under grassroots motorsport and they did it without a single conversation with the people who actually run the events.
The DOI has issued a document that has stunned local event organisers who are now questioning whether they will be able to continue running events.
Organisers weren’t consulted and they weren’t warned. They weren’t even given the courtesy of a consultation. Instead, they have been hit with a new fee schedule that hikes motorsport road‑closure charges from £275 to £3,000 — a staggering 1000% increase.
Local authority member Chris Martin (Ramsey) has already called it out as “the great non two‑wheeled stitch‑up,” The DOI has created a two‑tier system where government‑run, government‑promoted, government‑protected two‑wheel events glide through untouched, while volunteer‑run four‑wheel motorsport gets hammered with costs that look designed to kill it off.
Organisers are demanding answers from Infrastructure Minister Tim Crookall.
One local organiser has contacted Manx.News and is asking: “Who came up with these charges? Who signed them off? Who decided that volunteer clubs should be treated like commercial promoters? Who thought a 1000% increase was remotely defensible? Crookall must answer”
Right now, no one inside the DOI is willing to explain the logic. No cost modelling has been published. No impact assessment has been shared. No consultation notes exist because no consultation took place.
Andreas Racing Rip Off
Meanwhile, the management of Jurby Airfield has already been handed over to the Andreas Racing Association, who promptly doubled the cost of a day’s use of the Motordrome to around £1,500. Now Crookall’s department has piled in with a fee hike so extreme it borders on institutional hostility.
Grassroots organisers, volunteers, not corporations, are being priced out of existence. These are the people who run club events, sprints, hill climbs, autocrosses, charity motorsport days. They’re the backbone of Manx motorsport culture. And they’re being told, bluntly, that their contribution is expendable.
The TT? Untouched. Protected. Wrapped in cotton wool. Two wheels get the red carpet. Four wheels get the invoice.
Alien Ray Gun
Martin joked that an “Alien Ray Gun” must have hit government employees and ministers. Something has scrambled the decision‑making circuits inside the DOI, said Martin. Because no rational department, acting in the public interest, would drop a financial bomb like this on volunteer‑run events.
Crookall must take responsibility
Hoteliers Hit Out
Hotel owners are already sounding the alarm, because fewer motorsport events mean fewer heads on pillows. One Douglas hotelier told Manx.News he’s furious, because every cancelled event wipes out a weekend’s worth of bookings. He relies on those steady streams of visiting competitors, mechanics, families and spectators who fill rooms, eat in restaurants and keep the island’s tourism economy alive outside TT fortnight. Strip away grassroots motorsport, often in the off-peak season, and you strip away year‑round visitor traffic. For him, Crookall’s 1000% fee hike isn’t just an attack on organisers but it’s a direct hit on the hospitality sector, and he wants the DOI Minister to explain why his and other businesses are again being sacrificed without consultation by a “greedy government department”.
