Isle of Man TT: Return of races will give fans 'what they expect'

The event has been cancelled for the past two years because of the coronavirus pandemic

The return of the Isle of Man TT races next year will be "exactly what people have come to expect", the enterprise minister has said.

The event is due to run between 29 May and 10 June after being cancelled for two years due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Alex Allinson said he "hoped" visitor numbers would reach pre-Covid levels, as mitigations would be in place to keep everyone "safe".

About 46,000 people travelled to the island for the last TT in 2019.

Thousands of fans travel to the island to watch the races each year

Dr Allinson said: "I really hope we will have comparable visitors to before Covid.

"Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty in Europe at the moment, and there are people concerned about booking any sort of holiday for next year."

However, a "huge amount of work" had gone into making the 2022 event safe, with "many mitigations planned both for riders and spectators", he added.

Live steaming of the racing will be introduced for the first time next year as part of a revamp of the festival, but a permanent replacement for the historic TT scoreboard has not yet been installed.

The previous structure was removed in 2020 in "because it was about to fall down" and would be replaced with a "state of the art" scoreboard in 2023, Dr Allinson said.

"It will retain some of the heritage that we previously had, with some of the newer technologies that we are bring in to the racing, in terms of the timing, and in terms of the live-streaming as well," he added.