Friday last week (17th November) marked the first anniversary of the Isle of Wight council announcing that from January 2017 the Cowes Floating Bridge would be out of action for almost three months.
A year later and the bridge – which, after several delays, finally went into service in May 2017 – can be seen at the mouth of the River Medina, but has not provided vehicle or passenger crossings since the beginning of September.
The council have not said when the floating bridge will come back into service, but have stated the findings of “a robust review into the design, build and delivery of the new Cowes floating bridge” will go to the Scrutiny Committee in January.
New name for No 6?
Fanfared by the Isle of Wight council earlier this year, an official naming competition came to an abrupt halt just before the election.
More serious issues such as the bridge not operating properly, the council’s own inspector declaring that noise levels were ‘well above WHO guidelines’ and the safety of foot passengers queuing at the East Cowes terminal took over.
Meanwhile, vessels around the world are successfully being officially named with populist monikers – such as Sydney’s ‘Ferry McFerryface’ and Sweden’s ‘Trainy McTrainface’. The Cowes Floating Bridge, which thousands said should be called ‘Floaty McFloatface’ remains the rather mundane, Floating Bridge 6.
When can we name the bridge?
Many readers have asked OnTheWight over the recent months when the naming competition would be reignited.
OnTheWight have asked the council for you. The response simply read,
“No update on the re-naming at this stage.”
For the moment, we’ll have to wait.
