Staffing issues that have been affecting cross-Solent travel and Island Line trains have now spread like the plague to the Cowes Floating Bridge, which will be suspended for 5 hours on Monday.
The Isle of Wight Council has announced that due to staff sickness, which are impacting crew availability, the decision has been taken to halt the East Cowes to Cowes service between 09:00 and 14:00 on Monday 14th November.
A launch service will be in operation for foot passengers and cyclists.
The Council apologises for any inconvenience this may cause.
UPDATE @ 17:03 – The Isle of Wight Council has confirmed that staffing has now been secured and that service wont be cancelled next Monday (14th November).
Very unfit island, always staff shortages due to sickness…… covid cases are crashing.
Surely that should be kept a secret? Like everything also around that white elephant.
About time they built a bridge.
A bridge was talked about in 1975 – 47 frigging years ago. Whilst we got brain dead people at County Hall it ain’t going to happen.
This is becoming the norm, I hope all these “sick” people are having to take the necessary tests as proof if it is covid? Hard to understand when the job is in the fresh air unless there is a “conspiracy theory” link?
What an idiotic comment, sick could just as easily be broken bones, heart attack, shingles etc.
People still got sick before covid!
Sick of working for a living more like…
The council can stick their apologies!!!!
Staff shortages , break downs…..
How about overtime surely ????gotta be cheaper than paying for the Jenny !!!!!!
And they have the cheek to withhold how much they got back from this heap of junk …..
The council office is full of staff
Do a bot of multi tasking and earn the money you take from the tax payers
I’ve said it before, but if you’re going to run a business, and especially a public service business, then you need to have an adequate number of staff to run the service even when some staff are calling in sick or whatever.
You don’t get supermarkets, for example, shutting their doors because some staff have gone off sick. They employ enough people to cover for these eventualities and staff are trained to do more than one job.
There was four or five on there today …including the fat bloke that does nothing
They must be the only company on the planet with predictive illnesses….
If people get full pay straight away if ill. as a matter of course they take regular sickies. You used to have to provide a Doctors certificate to prove that you are ill.
Totally agree Rainbow , they all want to try being self employed they wouldn’t be shirking then as no work no pay
Staff sorted .. Perfect time to spin another “technical breakdown” to soften the blow of this awful asset reliability and the councils failure once again ..
What’s the betting it will be suspended on Monday for some technical reason or the water is to wet
Wow that will save paying for the jenny !
Bit of overtime?
Not rocket science!!!!
Good job it’s not a public service that people depend on. Seems to be pot luck if its running or not.
Stop the sick pay….the lazy entitled employees will soon show up for work then..
Train the stand by boat crew to man the floating bridge.
maybe the council could employ stand by staff for this situation . they could use the money they got from mainstay the bridge builders who have paid them back the build cost £3.2 million plus in excess of £1 million as compensation but all kept secret by the council ( island echo ask them for an interview and see if they deny what they have received )