The Isle of Wight council had promised to provide an update on the continued outage of the Cowes Floating Bridge by the end of August.
Readers will remember that the council rejected claims of an up to 30 week outage for repair – but remained silent on whether eight weeks outage was possible.
See below the latest statement in their own words. Ed
The Isle of Wight Council issued an update on the Cowes Floating Bridge on 8th August 2020, which detailed the intention to establish the extent of the issue and indicate by the end of the month, a date for completion of the works and return to service.
Since works to establish the issues started on 10th August, inspections by engineers of the main equipment (pumps, motors and valve blocks) have taken place.
Reports of analysis of hydraulic and other fluids and a further hydraulic ram inspection are now expected at the start of the week beginning 31st August.
IWC: Apologies for the continued delays and disruption
An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson said,
“We apologise for the continued delays and disruption to the service. It is important that the work to identify the root cause of the issues with the hydraulic system is as thorough as possible and this work has taken longer than anticipated.
“Once the full reports are received from the engineers, we can plan to resolve the issues, establish the time it will take to complete the works and to resume the service.”
The launch service for foot passengers will continue to operate from 0500 – 2300hrs (0630-2300hrs Sundays).
Image: © Richard Dykes
