Concerns have been raised by councillors about proposals to spend another £350,000 on the Floating Bridge service between East Cowes and Cowes – with a decision set to be made tonight. As previously reported by Island Echo, the Isle of Wight Council is looking to commission a River Medina Crossing Strategy which will include soft market testing with potential vessel providers to ascertain the feasibility of constructing a new floating bridge. Furthermore, the strategy will review the previous Business Case, produce a long and shortlist of options for alternative technical and economical solutions to the current vessel, and develop a financial base case. The cost of commissioning the Medina Crossing Strategy is expected to be in the region of £350,000, which will be funded from the confidential settlement sum paid out by those behind the building of the existing vessel. Speaking at the council’s corporate scrutiny committee on Tuesday, Councillor Karl Love, the ward representative for East Cowes, said the authority had spent 7 years doing all kinds of reports and work on the Floating Bridge 6 so the technical information is available. He thought the council should get on and look at what is available instead of dragging it out and was not sure the public would want them to pay the money for another report. Chair of the committee, Councillor Joe Robertson questioned whether the intermediary step was necessary. He also said if the proposed strategy and documents attached to it set out parameters to which a new vessel is designed, there may be a flaw and a blame could be placed with the Council if there is an issue — like Floating Bridge 6. In the council’s contracts for the current chain ferry, the Isle of Wight Council stipulated what the vessel was made with, what the engines would look like and how long it would be. Colin Rowland, the council’s community services director, said getting straight to the point, as councillors suggested, would not be ‘proper process’ to ensure the council gets good value for public money. He said the strategy would set out high level performance expectations and specifications for the vessel, like how much it would charge and how many crossings it would do an hour, but avoid going into too much technical detail. Mr Rowland said:
“The technical specification would justify the spending of millions of pounds of public money as to why we are going down the route of a new vessel. We would then know what the preferred option is and then we can go out to tender.”
The decision on whether or not to proceed with the £350,000 strategy will be made at the local authority’s cabinet meeting today (Thursday).
The blind leading the blind as usual with our council. They are pathetic. Surely, it would have made sense to get a suitably qualified engineer to attend the meeting. Perhaps they could have asked one of the engineers who was recently paid a pile of cash for a report on the bridge. But no, we just have a bunch of unqualified people tossing uninformed opinions around.
The short answer to this is NO. Too much has been spent on this farce already. It is time to stop talking and procrastinating and start actually doing. We need a crossing NOW – we don’t need pages of management-speak and a report in two years’ time. Get on with actually doing your job with the reports already on your desks and stop wasting my council tax.
This looks like “Let’s look into getting another chain ferry”, but a real Medina Crossing Strategy would consider a Yarmouth-style swing bridge from Folly Lane or Island Harbour. It should also consider if a vehicle ferry at Cowes is really necessary now and a passenger launch instead would be enough.
Yep,inclined to agree.Maybe this was all a long-range,kick-the-can-down-the-road operation all along ?
With the amount of traffic that uses the river, I don’t think that a swing bridge would work, as there isn’t sufficient holding space on the down side of the river,with the Red Funnel ferries in and out needing space as well as the commercial boats up and down.
this won’t happen.
it will be another chain ferry,
A fleet of Jenny’s owned by islanders, run by islanders, subsidised in the same way the FB6 was, but far far cheaper. For foot/bicycle passengers and everyone else can drive round. HELL NO, to spending any more money lining the pockets of equity companies and investors with an eye on profit who seriously think we are simply a cash cow they can rinse, and tough when it doesn’t work, simply pay twice please. NO. F right off. Get blazingly angry, people!!
Why not get an outside provider for the servcie like the ferries, can it be any worse than what we already have, they provide the boat at their own expense and keep the charges,no cost to the council,
Maybe Wightlnk could run it and charge £20 for a foot passenger and £80 for a car ….
It might not be too bad, since people have the option of going the long way around, so they would have to keep prices reasonable.
More wasted money and they have the audacity to put the Council Tax up when that sort of money could be put to far better use. Makes you wonder how much the undisclosed sum was?
So basically when it comes down to spending their money (the undisclosed settlement money) they think twice but when it come from us it’s not a problem
A third of a million pounds for a strategy paper? I’ll do you two for that price.
Any sixth form or college student could do as part of course. Why with the high pay council employees get and qualifications to get a job with them can’t they do this themselves?. Like me being employed as a cleaner but then getting someone else to clean and charge on top again. This council is a farce from top,we don’t need a CEO of council on more pay than Priminster and don’t need half of service managers etc.Use money from payout – I guess that’s all of it gone then.
Incidentally, do we know how much pay rise the Council awarded themselves, or is that top secret too???
Suggest best keep the iWC a million miles away from any FB decisions…. top to bottom incompetence reigns
You’ve wasted enough money on it, so what’s another few hundred grand gonna make, eh? FFS!! 😮
Sink this piece of junk
what qualifies these people to be in charge of our money and country?
MPs are giving themselves a £5,000.00 a year pay rise, most of them are
useless B’stards
The workers is run by Rogues!
PUBLIC QUESTION WHETHER IWC SHOULD BE MY INVOLVED AT ALL IN THE £350,000 SPEND ON THE MEDINA CROSSING STRATEGY.
Public say No to IWC .