A petition to reinstate the Senior Race Day bank holiday has now been signed by over 4,000 people since it opened last night.

The decision to drop the bank holiday, following the cancellation of the TT, was listed on a Tynwald order paper for the May 19 sitting.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle confirmed the decision to scrap it had been made during Thursday’s press briefing.

Since then a petition, created by Max Byrne, has been gathering support on the website Change.org.

In his petition, Mr Byrne said: ’I believe this amendment should be revoked. Just because we have cancelled the Tourist Trophy due to very real health concerns raised by Covid-19 doesn’t mean that the national holiday also associated with event should also be cancelled.’

’When the Tourist Trophy was similarly cancelled in 2001 due to concerns over Foot and Mouth disease, the national holiday was still honoured.

’Further more, take for example Good Friday, Easter Monday and Christmas, many people on the island are not religious but still observe these religious holidays for the sake of tradition.

’Despite cancelling the event this year for the sake of tradition Senior Race Day should remain a public holiday in the same way as these other public holidays.’

As Mr Byrne pointed out, when the 2001 TT was cancelled, then Chief Minister Donald Gelling insisted on keeping the bank holiday in place.

Speaker Juan Watterson said: 'I'm sure there will be a lot of very angry people in the Comis tonight who were looking forward to a ray of hope ahead of the bank holiday weekend. 'Whatever medical justification there was for this lock up 6 weeks ago is not justified by the cases coming through testing. 1/2 a day. 'The sick are trusted to self-isolate, key workers are trusted to self isolate, but this group aren't. They're right to be angry.'As will a lot of people in finance jobs, who have knuckled down and gone to work, or changed to working from home, sometimes whilst looking after children at the same time. 'To remove the senior race day bank holiday with no consultation seems mean spirited at a time when we should be looking forward to as many uplifting experience as we can.'Just to be clear - Tynwald does not get to vote on this cancellation, it is a decision made by Alf Cannan in Treasury.'