OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from a reader known to OnTheWight who wishes to remain anonymous. Ed
I’m angry about the disinformation surrounding Floating Bridge 6, and even angrier about what it’s costing us to keep it. There are real financial reasons why we need a new one – as it will cost less to replace it than to keep this one running.
This floating bridge wastes – costs us OUR council tax – over £1 million a year in EXTRA operational and maintenance costs compared with Floating Bridge 5, including the loss of profit that Floating Bridge 5 used to generate. Yes, the old floating bridge made money for the council. This one loses us money. Over the new floating bridge’s potential 40-year lifetime, that’s an EXTRA £40 million lost – plus inflation.
Total costs
The original price tag on this banger was £3.2 million (£4.6 million including changing the slipways). An ADDITIONAL £10 million and counting has been spent on Floating Bridge 6, on top of its normal operating and maintenance costs.
If you bought a £3,200 car, would you have spent an extra £10,000 on it, whilst it still runs slowly and unreliably, and then keep spending an extra £1,000 a year on top? No. (I’ve seen the maths and the Excel spreadsheet, readjusted for inflation, and comparing with Floating Bridge 5 when there were pedestrian ticket collectors started and new loading/unloading procedures – and after the breakwater was built. The maths is correct.).
Or how about purchasing a £32,000 business van or car – would you have wasted an EXTRA £100,000 on it – again, on top of normal maintenance and operational costs – and continue, knowing that it would be an £10,000 EXTRA per year?? No, you wouldn’t. So why, for the last nine years, have some of the Isle of Wight Council staff appeared to have lobbied irresponsibly to keep this floating bridge, while £1 million extra per year continues to be spent compared with FB5’s running costs and profit.
Inaccurate figures
I’m disgusted by some politicians and council staff putting out inaccurate figures over the years. A new floating bridge in 2026 pounds costs £4.333 million — £5.4 million with a 25% contingency cushion. Maybe a little more if we need to redo any portion of the slipways again or if certain building materials have outpaced inflation a bit.
Yet I’ve seen some politicians recently online and in print wrongly claiming that a new floating bridge would cost every IW household £300. The IW’s 67,200 households mean that would amount to over £20 million, a number nowhere close to the true mark of around £5 million to £6 million; figures with no apparent basis in the actual costs, not rooted in any maths, and appears to be fearmongering for some unknown purpose. We could buy two, three, or four floating bridges for that made up figure. We also can defray the costs of a new floating bridge with the mediation settlement money and the sale proceeds of this bridge to some river or other location where it would be better suited. A new floating bridge would immediately stop wasting £1 million extra per year and turn a profit again.
What some council staff say
Council staff also seem to like to pretend waiting times don’t matter. They do. Frequency determines whether people use the floating bridge or decide to drive around Newport instead, creating more traffic. Whether they go to Cowes to support local shops or don’t bother. Reliability always includes frequency and consistency, not just ‘availability’.
Pretending 95% availability is “reliable” is wrong – that means it’s out of planned service the equivalent of one day in every twenty days. That’s unacceptable.
Why it’s unreliable
I’m on the floating bridge infrequently, yet in the past six months twice when I was on it the engine stopped and we were unable to get off the floating bridge for seven minutes and for fifteen minutes. Cars load and unload at a snail’s pace as they still scrape their undersides and bumpers.
The central wheelhouse causes visibility issues which slows down landing times and being so high up and far away from the gate requires extra staff at times just to operate the gate. And of course a push boat continues to hold the bridge in place during ebbing spring tides.
Larger isn’t always better
They stupidly built a bigger floating bridge to move more cars back and forth, but making it larger defeated that very purpose. They didn’t seem to consider the problems with a floating bridge that is too tall, long, wide, and heavy for these tides, and how that would negatively impact the floating bridge’s performance, including that it moves fewer cars now.
In my opinion, the Scope of Requirements for this new floating bridge was also a bodge job. Many of the requirements contradicted each other or contraindicated good performance. Requirements should only be about ‘performance’.
Six returns crossings were required, but other strange demands were also written up that negatively affected how well the floating bridge works – like demanding in the official Scope that this floating bridge have a central wheelhouse which as already described, slows down landing times and incurs additional staff costs. They included ridiculous ‘wish list’ ideas like ‘iconic design’ as a requirement – again, not performance-related and also unmeasurable.
It’s a floating bridge, not a ferry
It’s not a ferry – it is an important part of the road network that is unbridged for the sake of the yachting, maritime, and other industries on the water and the commercial goods like aggregates that form the asphalt for all our Island roads.
Stop pretending like it’s for the convenience of Cowes and East Cowes when in fact it is critically important to the whole island’s economy, road network, and island taxpayers’ purses.
The realities
Let’s also kill off the rumours perpetuated by armchair engineering ‘experts’ and address the realities. Side thrusters won’t work with that floating bridge, in that location – full stop.
A few years ago, the University of Southampton’s Ship Science Department did computer modelling for FB6 in the current tides, and confirmed side thrusters will not work, wherever they are located and no matter how strong they are. This was part of a professional study done by qualified engineers.
Why other bridges won’t work here
A swing or drawbridge or other type of fixed link bridge at this location is equally undesirable if not impossible. River traffic peaks in tourist season which would result in the bridge being open more than closed, defeating the very purpose of moving cars and people quickly across during the busiest times for the tourist economy.
Boats would crowd the harbour, and some sailboats and small powerboats have very little control to manoeuvre safely and accurately in the strongest spring tides, and there are few spaces in the harbour to dock temporarily. Idling boats would obstruct Red Funnel ferries entering and leaving the harbour.
There are geological land problems and eminent domain issues for certain bridge designs that would require destroying houses and/or commercial buildings, and the lead-up infrastructure also would be impractical.
A bridge further upriver would be beneficial, but it wouldn’t help the pedestrians get over the river between the centres of the two towns. A permanent pedestrian launch (Jenny boat) would be a loss-maker for the council. None of these are viable alternatives.
The settlement
Regarding the mediation’s financial settlement and all of the unnecessary hype about transparency: yes, it would be nice if everything in legal deals were transparent. But the reality is that insurance companies don’t want the public – and therefore potential new claimants – to know how much they pay out.
So the Council was in a real Catch-22; do they agree to a larger sum of money and do a Non-Disclosure Agreement, or do they require the amount of winnings be published for the sake of ‘open data’, but therefore receive a much, much smaller award? I’d rather that the Council get the most money for this atrocity of a floating bridge, and ring-fence and apply that bigger money towards getting us a new one, which is what they have done.
Let’s get on with it
We need to get rid of this ‘Temu’ not-fit-for-purpose floating bridge now before it really bleeds us dry, as it will only get worse over the years as FB6 ages.
Many thanks to the politicians who have worked hard to sort out a new floating bridge, recognising the damage this floating bridge is causing to the taxpayers, local businesses, schools, commuters, families, and traffic in Newport and beyond. Let’s get on with it.
