Talks to reach a financial settlement over the troubled Floating Bridge have run aground.
A year after it was first mentioned, the Isle of Wight Council has undertaken legal mediation with those who built and designed the Floating Bridge 6 — which has been locally dubbed the ‘Wight Elephant’.
The £3.2million vessel has been plagued with problems, malfunctions and breakdowns since it was installed in 2017 and the authority has started to take steps to get some of the money it has lost back.
The council was after a ‘fair and acceptable settlement’ Councillor Phil Jordan, the cabinet member for infrastructure and transport, had previously said but following proceedings last week, no agreement has been reached.
2 days were set out for the 3 parties to reach a settlement but the council walked away empty-handed.
It is now deciding what its next steps will be, whether to go back to mitigation or take it further into legal action.
Speaking today (Monday), Cllr Jordan said one of the reasons the mitigation had failed was because the parties were miles apart in agreeing on the costs. While not able to say how much the council was claiming, Cllr Jordan said it was in the millions but the difference between what was being offered to the authority was also in the millions.
Cllr Jordan said it was frustrating but he was waiting to speak to the council’s lawyers and hoped a decision would be made on what to do next in weeks, not months.
The authority had previously said it would not hesitate to instigate further legal action without delay.
A government report, released last year, was the last bit of evidence the council needed to take the mediation forward after inspectors confirmed the Cowes to East Cowes chain ferry was poorly built and poorly designed.
Today, the Floating Bridge 6 has been taken out of action for a safety inspection conducted by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Every 5 years chain ferries are legally required to undergo the inspection which will mean the service will be out until 22nd April. A foot passenger launch is being used instead.
Close reading of the SLEP meeting minutes reveal that the council was closely involved with this project throughout and dismissed other potential Medina crossing ideas such as a fixed bridge or tunnel out of hand without bothering to do an in depth investigation into the feasibility of such a scheme..
Indeed. The smell of this fiasco permeates very deep.
Absolutely correct Tim. The previous Administration’s talk of undertaking “Legal Action” and hence why they couldn’t comment on the issues around FB No.6 was spun out over many, many months before being found to be untrue.
This present Administration’s attempts at mediation were also doomed to fail – as will be any further real “Legal Action” as to take a case to a Court of Law you need to present real and viable evidence to support your case. With the situation on the FB No.6 the Council were fully involved in the project all along the way and this is well documented in meeting minutes. The real question is why they did not have an effective contract to implement and then professionally manage the situation in all the design, build and commissioning meetings.
Can someone please explain why it is taking so long to safety check which is just a box with an engine some hydraulics and not much else.
It’s so they can keep fixing something until it’s broken . . . We can’t have a reliable running floater can we?
maybe the council likes wasting public money which they term as a property tax?????????????
Why would the builder pay up? For four years, councillors ward and Stewart said fb6 operated at over 90% reliability. Unfortunately, those outright lies are now coming back to haunt the council and cost the tax payer yet more money
once it has been towed away remove the chains and refuse to allow it to be returned.
Fit it with longer chains and donate it to Dover to help out with the refugees.
It looks like they’ll be painting quite a few more miles of double yellow pension fund lines across the island to make up the difference – that’s the beauty of the public sector, no matter how incompetent or useless they are, nobody is ever held accountable and the residents always pay!
Sadly unknown why the original FB was not copied, instead of being made bigger. Also why does the FB not have ‘ rollers’ on bottom or on slipways ( similar idea to a boat trailer ) Then it would not get ‘ grounded’ but all the money that has been spent overall; with every FB, certainly would be enough for a tunnel there for pedestrians and a bridge a little further up… the cou8ncillor that suggested the bigger FB should be sacked, … look how much money that guy has wasted.. ( He also agreed to removing St Mary’s roundabout, PLUS that chap loves putting in Traffic Lights !!! )
i think this was to get more vehicles on too the FB6 and to get more income for this Council ,so now the tax payers as normal are paying the price of the Councils mistake .
They let it fail, because if the case had gone further we would have found out about the brown envelopes under the table.
What does the council expect? They accepted the design and ordered it. They should just have copied the old one which worked.
Next time the Council needs to spend tax payers money will they please do proper investigations and deal with people who have sound knowledge of the structures they are considering to purchase? The cheapest offers are not the best in the long run, they also need to do a feedback survey from others using identical products and much better project management especially around the costs.
Useless heap!
Sink it as footings for a swing bridge!
They don’t care ,they aren’t spending their money ,no accountability at all !
No surprise. After all the years of inaction, by the council. What judge would say it’s faulty.
Someone has sat on it, waiting for the huge pension on retirement, to kick in.
No more poll tax increases for this rubbish.
Council must end this debacle.
if this Wight elephant fails its safty check ,this vessel should be deemed unfit for its purpose and be scrapped , this council is aware it will lose all and any income if a fixed link is constructed ,and will be a lot of savings on staff, and maintenance cost in wages .
The council will refuse any fixed link which can easily be constructed ,by the way the land lies in the decline and the incline elevation of East Cowes and Cowes .and this will also eliminate the problem of access for vessels to come and go