Residents and businesses frustrated with the failures of the Cowes floating bridge and health and safety issues for pedestrians, are planning to make their voices heard before the next Isle of Wight full council meeting.
A pre-meeting protest is planned outside County Hall from 4.30-6pm (when the meeting starts in the main chamber) on Wednesday 19th July.
Free travel until problems resolved
The meeting will hear two motions relating to the floating bridge.
The first is by Cllr Julie Jones-Evans (Newport Central) and Cllr Karl Love (East Cowes) and calls for the suspension of charges for foot passengers until all issues are resolved.
It reads:
That Isle of Wight Council suspend, in light of the ongoing issues of the floating bridge, foot passenger charges for the foreseeable future and until such time that all the current issues have been fully resolved.
“This should be reviewed again after the recommendations of the public enquiry are submitted for reflection and discussion at full council.
Free travel for parents
The second motion is by the councillor for Whippingham and Osborne, Cllr Julia Baker-Smith. It calls for free travel for parents escorting their children to school and reads,
Charging pedestrians on the floating bridge has had a significant impact upon many user groups but a particularly unfair impact on parents with children choosing healthy routes to school who are now being charged up to £6 per day in order to walk their children to school. This presents a potential and unnecessary barrier to low income families to maintaining school attendance.
This Council resolves to ask the executive to provide free travel for parents escorting their children to school where they live on the opposite side of the river to the school their child attends.
As always, OnTheWight will be reporting live from the meeting for the benefit of those unable to attend.
