Isle of Wight Floating Bridge future strategy could cost £250k

The Isle of Wight Council is proposing a 'Medina Crossing Strategy', which will look at technical engineering solutions, management options and potentially replacing the troubled Floating Bridge 6 with a new vessel.

It could be given the go-ahead at the authority's cabinet meeting today (Thursday), and see an extra £100,000 spent on staffing as the council currently does not have enough officers to deal with the legal side or a project manager to lead it.

There were concerns, however, the council was taking on 'unnecessary' work and it should just find someone who could build a new vessel.

Speaking at the council's corporate scrutiny committee on Tuesday, Cllr Karl Love, the ward representative for East Cowes, said the authority had spent seven years doing all kinds of reports and work on the Floating Bridge 6 so the technical information is available.

He thought the council should get on and look at what is available instead of dragging it out and was not sure the public would want them to pay the money for another report.

Read more:

• Here's what experts have to say on troubled Floating Bridge 6
• 'Radically redesigned vessel' would fix Floating Bridge's problems says report
• There may be no easy fix to Floating Bridge problem says council

Chair of the committee, Cllr Joe Robertson questioned whether the intermediary step was necessary.

He also said if the proposed strategy and documents attached to it set out parameters to which a new vessel is designed, there may be a flaw and a blame could be placed with the council if there is an issue — like Floating Bridge 6.

In the council's contracts for the current chain ferry, the Isle of Wight Council stipulated what the vessel was made with, what the engines would look like and how long it would be.

Colin Rowland, the council's community services director, said getting straight to the point, as councillors suggested, would not be 'proper process' to ensure the council gets good value for public money.

He said the strategy would set out high level performance expectations and specifications for the vessel, like how much it would charge and how many crossings it would do an hour, but avoid going into too much technical detail.

Mr Rowland said: "The technical specification would justify the spending of millions of pounds of public money as to why we are going down the route of a new vessel. We would then know what the preferred option is and then we can go out to tender."