The two and a half years of problems experienced by those relying on the Cowes floating bridge to travel between the East and West banks of the River Medina have been well reported here (over 200+ articles since 2016).
‘Floaty McScrape Face’
However, someone who seems to prefer to remain anonymous has created a video charting the timeline of Floating Bridge 6, from the first announcement in 2012 (when the then-Conservative administration declared they had put aside £3m for a new bridge [more here]), to the present day with over £6.4m spent with a catalogue of failures.
Stewart: “A duty to put it right”
The video highlights the problems of the bridge from the first day of service and the claims made by Leader of the Isle of Wight council, Cllr Dave Stewart, who said that the challenges were “not beyond the wit of man to sort out” and that he thought it “will be done sooner than we think”.
Footage from an interview with IW Radio, reveal Dave saying, “I think we have a duty to put it right”.
That was two years ago and many of the problems are still ongoing.
Watch the video
The video is 12 and a half minutes long …
That missing £3m
The £3m the Conservative administration said they’d squirreled away was something discovered by the Island Independents when they took power in 2013 not to be the case, and then-Leader Cllr Ian Stephens managed to negotiate a £3.7m grant from the Solent LEP to build the new bridge.
