MORE than a week after passengers were left stranded in the middle of the Medina, the Isle of Wight Council has said it does not know when the floating bridge will be back in service.
One East Cowes business owner branded the new £3.2 million floating bridge an 'unmitigated disaster', after it broke down within 24 hours of going into service.
As reported by the County Press, foot passengers were forced to wade back to shore after a power failure.
The Coastguard stepped in and suspended the service last Monday until further staff training had been completed.
The Isle of Wight Council said it would be up and running very shortly, although could not specify a date.
Business owners dismissed the council's claim that the service was experiencing 'teething trouble', and voiced their concerns at an East Cowes Town Council meeting on Friday.
Angela Booth, owner of Valu-4-U in East Cowes, said businesses were suffering as a result of the inadequate floating bridge.
Speaking after a heated East Cowes Town Council meeting on Friday, she said: "This isn't 'teething trouble', this is an unmitigated disaster.
"We were promised an efficient, larger, reliable, faster and customer-friendly floating bridge, and those criteria have failed to be met.
"Instead of a bespoke bridge, we got a wonky banger that is slower, more dangerous and completely unfit for purpose."
Ms Booth said the new bridge did not provide enough room for pedestrians, and the service would be slowed down by pedestrians having to get off before vehicles.
"Even if they slow down the crossings to a crawl, this will not fix problems, such as the fact that the bridge has only one sheltered pedestrian hold.
"The only way to mitigate problems with the pedestrian walkways is to offload pedestrians separate from cars, and let them walk towards the south side of the slipway and up, but this will slow down the bridge, and we were promised simultaneous offloading, which they could have done if they had two holds and weren't so obsessed with trying to charge pedestrians."
The business owners have demanded to see copies of feasibility studies carried out by the council, and want an urgent meeting with the Isle of Wight Council, East Cowes Town Council, and members of the public.
An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson said: "The floating bridge returned to service on Saturday, May 13 to a period of live operational testing. It was anticipated that during the first couple of weeks, that there would be some issues to be ironed out that could not be identified until the vessel was back in service and in full use.
"This followed initial sign-off by the Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA) of the vessel.
"This 'soft launch' followed a period of relevant tests, commissioning and staff training.
"The council is working with the manufacturer over the issues uncovered during the testing and is consulting with the MCA to confirm that they are happy that all issues have been resolved, necessary for the service to resume.
"This follows an approach from the MCA on Monday, May 15.
"The service is currently suspended while we resolve the issues identified during the live testing.
"We would again apologise to anyone that was affected by these issues over the weekend and hope that we will have the floating bridge fully operational very shortly."