At last week’s Isle of Wight Cabinet meeting, members voted to reject two motions from councillors calling for charges on the Cowes floating bridge replacement service to be scrapped.
Deputy leader and cabinet member for resources, Cllr Stuart Hutchinson, explained the reduced passenger launch service – which is being providing for foot passengers and cyclists after the new bridge was taken out of service last month – was costing the council £30,000 per month. This cost would rise to £50,000 if they provided a full service.
He went on to say the council hopes the costs of getting the floating bridge back into service would be covered by the designers and boatbuilders, but in the absence of a court case the IWC may have some liability, so they needed to be careful about costs they were incurring.
Costs being met by passengers
Cllr Hutchinson said the IWC are looking at possibly extending the service of the passenger launch, so it covers the hours the floating bridge would ordinarily be scheduled.
However, he added that the costs are being met by the people using it, so he felt it was reasonable for foot passengers to continue to pay for the service of getting them across the Medina River.
It was noted that the Floating Bridge is a discretionary service (ie. the IWC don’t have a statutory duty to provide it). It was also stated in papers that the council has a deficit of £500,000 on the service at the moment.
Motions rejected
Members of the Cabinet voted to reject both motions, one calling for charges to be scrapped until all issues are resolved with the floating bridge and the other for parents taking children to school to be scrapped.
Cllr Hutchinson reminded members the council would be needing to find savings of at least £7.5million in the forthcoming budget (being set in February 2018)
The full council will debate the motions at Wednesday’s meeting (tune into OnTheWight for live coverage from 6pm).
Response floating bridge from campaigners
Cameron Palin said,
“We should not be suffering from someone else’s mistakes,” said Cameron Palin, one of the lead East Cowes community organisers.
“The only way forward for my business is if the Isle of Wight council remove the financial barrier – get rid of the charges and have a consistent and reliable service.”
Angela Booth, East Cowes owner of Valu-4-U, said,
“The Council should be providing a launch service full time, just as they provide a floating bridge. Someone else’s mistake has devastated our shops and livelihoods.
“We have ‘budgets to balance’ as much as the Council does, but the difference is that someone else’s bad mistake with the floating bridge means that we not only can lose our shops but our homes as well.
“Most of the shops haven’t been able to pay ourselves since January. How long can you go without income? Are any of the officers or designers or other people involved in this catastrophic mess up of a floating bridge not getting paid the last nine months like we haven’t been? It’s beyond unfair.”
Turnover down 10-44%
She went on to say,
“We business owners have consistently told the Council the negative affect charging on the floating bridge has had on our people and towns.
“Shop owners in East Cowes are down 10-44% of our turnovers. Many businesses are being penalised due to there being a physical barrier when there is no service and also a financial barrier of a huge loss of foot fall. This has over all cost East Cowes around £250,000 (NOT including Waitrose or the Co-op) which is a huge loss to the local economy.
“Carers and cleaners who go back and forth multiple times a day for one hour’s minimum wage job can’t afford to walk to work.”
Article edit
12pm Response from East Cowes business and FB user added.
