A decisive vote on the future of the Isle of Wight’s Floating Bridge is expected at County Hall on Thursday (16th October).
Members of the economy, regeneration, transport and infrastructure committee (ERTIC) will decide whether to go ahead with a recommendation to modify rather than replace the vessel.
County Hall’s proposal was previously condemned by councillors Lora Peacey-Wilcox and Cameron Palin as a “direct attempt” to “undermine democracy”.
They flagged a March 2024 Alliance group cabinet decision to replace the chain ferry and Cllr Peacey-Wilcox, herself part of the Alliance, said it is “running at a loss of over £1 million a year”.
“Floating Bridge Six is not fit for purpose. Keeping it is a calamitous waste of taxpayers’ money,” she told the press.
Independent East Cowes county councillor Karl Love said he was “stunned” by the recommendation.
“We residents experience the failures of this vessel in real time. I will be asking some very testing questions at the meeting and made my feelings known in a councillor briefing.”
An ERTIC report due to be presented on Thursday said a modification of Floating Bridge Six would lead to a ‘higher value for money outcome’ and is the ‘preferred option from the perspective of maximising the economic and social benefits of the crossing’.
Its recommendation to the committee reads:
“Notes that Option one (new vessel) does not represent value for money relative to the other options, is not affordable and would not satisfy the legislative requirements to enable borrowing to be taken for the capital costs of purchase for a new vessel.
“Agrees to recommend to policy, finance and resources committee to allocate up to a maximum of £400,000 to undertake further limited modifications to the current Floating Bridge Six for additional chains and funded from the Floating Bridge Settlement Agreement.
“Subject to approval of funding by the policy, finance and resources committee, give approval to proceed to procurement for necessary works to undertake additional chain modifications only.
“Notes and acknowledges the views expressed from the public engagement alongside the best-case findings of the economic and financial assessment outputs.”
ERTIC will meet at County Hall at 17:00 on Thursday.
Yet another “decisive vote”? How many is that now? And we still don’t know how much IWC got in the settlement over FB6, and whether it’s already been spent propping up the floating dinosaur.
although they have always refused to disclose the settlement over FB6,
the fact that they have now stated “to allocate up to a maximum of £400,000 .. funded from the Floating Bridge Settlement Agreement” indicates that it was at least £400K, (but probably not a lot more… or they could afford to spend on more than a few basic modifications.)
With an original cost of some £3.2m & further on going cost & losses, due to the design failures, in excess of £9m,.. a measly £400k settlement suggests there were quite a lot of ‘brown envelopes’ involved in the settlement negotiations…
“Notes and acknowledges the views expressed from the public engagement alongside the best-case findings of the economic and financial assessment outputs.” “
What a complete load of gobbledygook. It does not acknowledge views from the Public, but just “notes” them. How patronising ! Why have all the expense of a 2 month “Public Consultation”, with various Council staff employed at the various “Customer Engagement Meetings”, with display boards, printed documents and an on-line survey and then completely ignore the Public response – which was 64% in favour of a new craft and only 31% wanting modifications to the existing failed craft, with 55% opposed or strongly opposed to such modifications.
The “option” of modifications came from the Council Consultants SYSTRA report which clearly states that such modifications “may not be sufficiently effective” and give no details on exactly how these additional chains should work. Speaking to the guys working the present craft, these additional chains are simple a set of chains to be manually attached to the existing drive chains and then around a pile further out in the channel to be manually winched in when the craft cannot dock due to the strong tidal current pushing on the vessel over deep hull. The Council Officer recommending spending £400,000 obviously believes this would be money well spent ! The SYSTRA report further states that if these additional chains fail to work, let’s spend more money on Consultants and try to fit “flush thrusters” to an already overweight craft acknowledged as not fit for purpose. Who is making Council decisions – the elected Councillors or a Council Officer ?
We just need a bridge and stop this disgraceful waste of our money once and for all.
It could have been built now with the money you have wasted not to mention how sick and tired the islanders are of the incompetance of the people responsible for all this. Its less then useless .
A bridge is a much cheaper option and operates
all year round.
To much talk about history, it’s now virtually 100% reliable. Why ditch it now when it’s working fine?
if it is ‘now working fine’..
why do they need to spend £400K on some “limited modifications to the current Floating Bridge Six for additional chains”
Jon,
The Floating Bridge is not “working fine”, hence all the belated SYSTRA recommendations now being suggested, (which they themselves state that these may not actually work !), in an attempt to fix an acknowledged “not fit for purpose” vessel. In addition to the vessel problems, it requires an additional pusher vessel to assist it to dock in certain tidal conditions. The three now Contracts placed for the pusher vessel to assist Floating Bridge No.6 into dock have now exceeded £1 Million. Hardly “working fine” and hardly cost effective to the weary Council taxpayer.
This floating bridge fiasco has been a complete disaster from start to finish, we are a laughing stock over this, why it couldn’t have been built the same as the old chain ferry I don’t know ? A complete money pit & will continue to be so until someone sees sense.
You can never use the words decisive and IOW council in the same sentence, I can almost guarantee the outcome of this decisiveness, we will cntinue as before becuase anything new would require certain financial commitments to come out that would embarass the council, again.
I’ve said this to people for many years. A transporter bridge would be more suitable. Not affected by tides, build as tall as needed. Would be impressive when coming to Island on ferry, “Welcome to the Isle of Wight “written on the gantry above. Could have high level walkway and view point too
Here we go keeping it then bodging it for years to come spending millions on the turd..already spent 3 times the amount in it and support when its broken which i very often even have to employ a tug to push against it when its to rough..what a joke.Still tax payers money so who gives a shit…certainly not he council.
Ditch this waste of OUR money, it is Jerk Jordans baby, so he will defend it until then end, he can’t be seen to cave in on it’s financing.
The ‘New’ groin that was built at the harbour entrance has not helped the situation as this has speeded up the tidal flow but to eleviate this either the existing floating bridge or its replacement needs side thrusters to keep it on track with the chains and not have to rely on a launch or barge to do this.