BBC Radio Solent presenter, Julian Clegg, put some excellent questions about the saga of Cowes floating bridge to Isle of Wight councillor, Ian Ward, this morning (Tuesday).
The cabinet member for Transport and Infrastructure dismissed the suggestion that many people were unhappy about the debacle surrounding the new floating bridge, which was originally promised by the Isle of Wight council to come into service near the end of March 2017.
Claim of pressure from residents
Cllr Ward claimed the problem, “started off because we allowed passengers to use the ferry while it was going through the commissioning period”.
That commissioning period – over three months later – is still ongoing, he claimed.
Then effectively blaming the community for wanting the absent service – which many people and businesses rely upon for their livelihood – to return, Cllr Ward said,
“There was so much pressure from the community to get it in to service that it was put into service before the commissioning period was finished.”
Cllr Ward: Not many people dissatisfied
During today’s interview, Cllr Ward claimed there was,
“An awful lot of noise about the floating bridge. The reality is that there aren’t that many people that are dissatisfied.”
The “noise” he’s referring to is not the noise levels which the council’s own inspectors say are are well above WHO guidelines and which have forced one resident out of their home.
Cllr Ward went on to explain that the public meeting called by the East Cowes Town Council which he and the Chief Executive of the Isle of Wight council, CEO John Metcalfe, attended was “quite a subdued meeting” with “no drama at all”.
Ward: “Activists” are “encouraging” complaints
The cabinet member added,
“There are a few people – I’d present them as activists – who feel quite strongly about it and they’re encouraging people to lodge complaints and so on and so forth – but I’ve been down to the floating bridge to watch the loading and unloading and things like that and it’s all proceeding normally.
“Yes, you do get the occasional car that bottoms, but it’s always has done that – it’s nothing new.
“This is not a huge drama.”
IWC claims only eight complaints
He went on to say the Isle of Wight council had only received eight complaints. He was unable to answer how many complaints had been received by phone.
OnTheWight asked IWC to confirm the eight complaints.
It took the council five and a half hours to confirm what had been broadcast – and as it has now emerged, had already been provided in an FoI answer – was correct – “Eight complaints have been lodged to Isle of Wight Council about Floating Bridge 6 since May 14th 2017.” In a followup question we asked for a confirmation of the date of this FoI request and have now learnt it was 31st July 2017.
When OnTheWight asked how many phone calls have been received about the floating bridge since the start of January, the council chose not to answer it, but push it to FoI request, delaying the response to up to 28 days.
BBC reporter: “People have been incensed”
Radio Solent’s Judy Goodlet, who has been following the this story for the last few months, told Julian,
“People have been incensed. They’ve been having some really hard times, so I’m slightly astonished to hear that that is fine, to have a lot of incensed people.”
Ward: “Never going to satisfy everybody”
Cllr Ward went on to say,
“There will always be people who are not happy with something or other. You’re never going to satisfy everybody are you?”
“Is there a great crowd of people out there being dissatisfied? I don’t think there is.”
Quick review of what actually happened
When the council first announced the previous floating bridge would be taken out of service on 2nd January and the new one would “come into service at the end of March 2017”, it was not mentioned that a commissioning period of several months would follow.
Indeed, when an update was issued in February, the council stated, “the ferry is scheduled for use in early May“.
The process to attach the Floating Bridge to its chains started on 3rd May 2017. Ten days after this, with great public excitement, the council opened for its first public journey. The following day, after losing power mid-journey, it was suspended by the MCA.
A IW Council press release on 7th July claimed “the floating bridge will return to full operational service on Saturday 8th July.” Ten days later, 17th July, the service was suspended again by the council for two days, with Ian Ward thanking the community “for their patience” then claiming the floating bridge was entering its “final phase of commissioning.”
Listen for yourself
You can listen to the entire interview over the BBC Radio Solent’s Website
Update 8pm: Added council conformation of eight complaints and them pushing our request to ask number of phone calls on floating bridge to FoI.
28 Aug 2017 – Added date of the FoI request.
Image: © First journey on the new floating bridge – with kind permission of Allan Marsh
