The Isle of Wight Council has confirmed that the Cowes to East Cowes Floating Bridge has been suspended for the last 2 days due to generator issues.
As previously reported by Island Echo, the chain ferry was suspended on Saturday afternoon with no explanation given at the time. However, the Council has now provided an explanation as to the reason for the closure – ‘a problem with the generators cutting out.’
In a statement, an Isle of Wight Council Spokesperson said:
“Regretfully the Floating Bridge service was suspended at the weekend owing to a problem with the generators cutting out. We apologise for the inconvenience. A specialist contractor from the mainland is currently on board and investigating the source of the issue.
“A replacement launch service continues to operate across the Medina River for foot passengers and cyclists. We will issue updates when available. Service status can be found at Isle Of Wight (iwfloatingbridge.co.uk)“
No estimate has been provided as to when the Floating Bridge may re-open.
UPDATE @ 20:19 – The Floating Bridge has now returned to service.
A spokesperson for the Isle of Wight Council said:
“The Cowes Floating bridge has returned to service at 20:00 this evening. A specialist engineer identified issues with both generators.”
“Adjustments to the generator systems have been made, followed by a number of successful test runs and monitoring, allowing operations to resume. The Isle of Wight Council apologises for any inconvenience caused by the disruption to service.”
One hopes that the costs of the “specialist contractor from the mainland” and of any consequent remediation will be borne by the builders/designers and not by IWC (us).
Why do we need a ‘specialist’ contractor from the mainland. Surely we have the skillset required more locally, in fact I am certain we do.
I suspect it might have been a warranty engineer sent by the manufacturer. It’s highly unlikely they will have staff and spares on the island.
I hadn’t considered that could be the case. I did wonder if it was more of a case that they didn’t want anyone local knowing the in’s and out’s of what went wrong… this time.
of course not…
Once the brown envelopes had been exchanged, as part of the ‘confidential settlement’, it ceased to be their responsibility,
& now falls entirely on us (the council tax payers) to fund all on-going costs…
Sink the bloody thing and we can drive over it
Why should we believe IWC .. their record on be transparent regarding this asset is hardly an endorsement.. would like to see Jordan step forward and explain.. but he won’t !!
Agreed – they have deliberately ignored their legal obligation to transparency in their dealings over this fiasco to the extent that they have agreed to a gagging order so extensive they can’t even discuss it, blocked FOB requests and are willing to risk large fines from the Information Commissioner’s office should formal complaints be made.
I would say vote they whole pack of them out when the next election comes around but, just like the civil servants in Whitehall, the staff providing advice and backing up these bad decisions would still be in post and untouchable.
As such I can only hope that the ICO comes after those responsible and not just the council as a whole.
I am sick to the back teeth of reading about this heap of scrap metal. Back in the day the old floater never had any issues, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it! And don’t get me started on “replacement launch service” it’s a bloody boat call it a boat!…Steve
The council have very kindly sent us all ‘General Waste’ stickers. Perhaps if we all stuck them on this scrap metal, somebody would take it away.
Probably just needed the fan belt adjusted
Did it really take 2 days to work out what was wrong, or 2 days to think of another excuse that they hadn’t already used.
Didn’t know boats had suspension?