The Cowes Floating Bridge has once again been pulled from service due to yet another technical issue.
Council officials say that an issue has been discovered with one of the vessel’s rams. Island Echo understands that a weld has blown on the north west ram, causing hydraulic oil to spill.
A replacement launch service is being brought in and will continue until repairs are carried out. It is unknown when the repairs will be completed.
UPDATE @ 16:40 – The floating bridge appears to be back in service and is once again operating between East Cowes and Cowes.
A pile of shit and this is why our council tax is going to go up disgrace
The FB has got nothing to do with council tax going up. The ongoing cost of repairing the FB is peanuts compared to the shortfall due to cuts in local government funding by Central government AND the huge cost in funding social services here on the island because of the ageing population. Add the extra costs due to covid and the floating bridge doesn’t come close to being responsible for the rise in council tax.
That is why social services should come out of central funds.
Must be some terrific force at work here, welds giving way, hydraulic unions giving way. Revisit the physics of levers please.
The ram angles look far too acute and I’m not even an engineer!
Pathetic. No doubt IWC will whisper their trite “sorry for the inconvenience”. Not good enough IWC. I suggest you go to every single business owner/commuter in Cowes/East Cowes and Kowtow copiously. This should have been dealt with 2 years ago when it was crystal clear that the taxpayers had been foisted off with a total piece of cr*p.
Scrap it, it just not worth all the money being thrown at it. It is the classic bigger is not always better.
Wasting tax payers hard earned money on something they can’t use !! Scrap, build a bridge and get people to pay a 50p toll for its up keep!
PS. Hayling Island built a railway bridge with a swing section which was operated manually by one man cranking a handle about a 100yrs ago!!
Wonders why the council are stressed and wondering how to save millions this year,never mind our council tax can go up and pay for the shambles
Oh yes they are stressed and tired due to the tsunami of covid !!!
(Think the NHS are struggling more )
So how about you remove some of your stress ???
As previously mentioned AGES ago give it the the Royal Navy for target practice.
The public have had enough.
You really couldn’t make it up, could you?
Well it certainly Beggars belief !!!!!
See it’s up and running again !!! Question is how long for ????
Now that is certainly a poser .
Would it not be better for the headline to read “Launch Service off, Floating Bridge operating again”
There must be a point where a viable solution is made rather than constantly having to
make the residents of the island pay additional costs.
Surely the millions that have been spent on this fiasco could have been better used
by reducing our council tax payments. Oh hang on we cannot do that because about 15%
of our payments go to paying for council workers pensions.
I think only viable solution is to get rid of it completely and use a foot passenger launch that they use when its out of action just a bit of inconvenience for drivers I know but it would save an enormace amount of money
Even the Jenny costs a fortune .
They must love the fiasco of non floating Bridge.
Oh don’t forget the pilot boat used to assist the pile of C— !!!
Can’t they at least BUY the Jenny?
Don’t suppose the owner’s would sell they make far more due to the non floating bridge Navy on speed dial @
No one cares, SINK IT!!!!!
Don’t JUST moan on here, ENSURE that YOU all and all you know, VOTE THEM OUT next time we have the chance.
This is just ONE blunder, their largest is the massive destruction of our beautiful Island for their ‘gain’.
The trouble is that you can only vote for councillors and not for the ’employees’ of the council, and they are the ones who ****** things up. Councillors, as we have often seen, are only there to protect the employees. We, the tax payers, should have some control over who is employed, especially in the upper levels such as managers and upwards.
Even if the Councillors started kicking backsides they would soon be in trouble. Look at what happened to Priti Patel – she tried it and finished up having to make numerous apologies and nearly lost her job.
And replace them with who .they are all useless .
Mules and donkeys worked fine.
Rams are simply not up to the job.
Why do they have to go mucking about with everything.
The headline holds the answer. PULLED. You get two teams of our local crims who have been sentenced with community service to pull the Wight Elephant back and forth. Simples.
Can you headline when it is WORKING, will save a lot of effort.
Nothing but a hole that the council are continually throwing money in, the council should answer to the council tax payer as to why it has not only taken this long for them to have put a claim in for this utter disgrace but why it was acceptable to continually plunge money into something that is completely unfit for service when it was very clear the council tax payer was not happy to continually take the brunt of the bill!! Vote these utter pillocks out of office they are not fit for the job themselves.
For goodness sake, when is someone going to grow a pair and pull the bloody plug on this scandalous waste of public funds, not to mention the slow but sure decay to East Cowes businesses, the inconvenience of having to drive around and the seemingly ignorant to the needs of the people councillors. I’m sick and tired of reading about it!
Council won’t do nothing their tired poor things
Why do we have to keep hearing the same old rubbish every week about the floating bridge…..do away with the bloody thing and put a bridge in like Yarmouth….
Stick Dave and co on there and cut the chain maybe the will find another island to mess up
No good doing that it doesn’t move that far before breaking down !!!
Put all the idiot’s that built it and those that keep throwing our money at it and then tow it out and blow it up !
Build a bridge with a swing central section upstream of the power station for sailing boats. We could all walk cycle or drive each way. Just dreaming.