Campaigners have launched a petition in the hopes of forcing the Isle of Wight Council to stop spending “millions” on the floating bridge and make them buy a new one. 

The petition is entitled, “stop spending millions on failing floaty & get a new one”.

It had around 250 signatures at the time of writing on Monday morning (November 12).

The petition asks IW Council chief executive John Metcalfe, leader of the council Councillor Dave Stewart, cabinet member for transport Cllr Ian Ward, floating bridge 6 project manager Sean Newton and the IW Council as a whole to “cut its losses” and sell the bridge “before it depreciates any more”.

The Floaty Stakeholder campaigners, a group of concerned engineers, started the petition and would like the council to procure a new service similar in size and specification to the previous model – floating bridge 5.

The campaigners added: “Enough is enough! We are requesting that the council stops throwing money at this money pit.”

They claim the bridge is bad for business, traffic, and is “not nearly as good as the old floating bridge 5”.

The stakeholders continued: “Stop giving our taxpayer money away to the private sector and depreciating public assets!”

The Isle of Wight Council spokesman said: “We will not be commenting on this petition.”

You can sign the petition here: www.change.org/p/john-metcalfe-chief-executive-stop-spending-millions-on-failing-floaty-fix-it-or-get-a-new-one

https://iwobserver.co.uk/2018/11/08/chain-of-despair-as-floating-bridge-fails-in-front-of-bbc-cameras/