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Which companies have been paid how much for ‘Professional Services’ and ‘Other Private Contractors’ for the Floating Bridge: Deep dive #6

Last week, over a series of articles News OnTheWight was able to break down the costs and income relating to the Cowes Floating Bridge over the last 26 months.

As explained in #5 of the series, we put some questions to the Isle of Wight council (IWC) about some of the costs incurred. It’s taken a week and several back and forths, but we’re pleased to say that we now have answers to (most) of the questions.

Breakdown of ‘Private Contractors’ costs
In the FOI response, IWC had stated that payments of some £848,405 over 26 months had been paid to ‘private contractors’. ‘Other private contractors’ had not been broken down.

After pushing for further information, News OnTheWight can now reveal the breakdown for ‘other private contractors’ as below.

SupplierAug 2018 to Sep 2020
Mainstay Marine Solutions Ltd +£204,718
TransIQ Limited +£48,313
DMR Engineering (IW) Ltd£45,826
Marine and Risk Consultants Ltd£23,088
Shoreline Surveys Limited£21,200
Solent Marine Electrical£8,607
Wight Shipyard£6,700
GPC card£6,082
Richardson Yacht Services Ltd£4,836
Iron Brothers£4,115
Premier Solutions£3,037
MCM Construction Ltd£3,037
Tyco Fire & Integrated Solutions£3,000
Blueline Security Management Ltd£2,646
Parkeon Ltd£1,681
Reynolds & Read Ltd£1,442
Wight Noise Ltd£1,000
J A Dempsey Civil Eng Ltd [SB]£856
The Forge (IW) Ltd£798
ADT Fire and Security Plc£795
Brighstone Landscaping Ltd£580
Toney Hydraulic Services£389
Osel Enterprises Ltd£336
Signpost Express£327
Canark Marine Ltd£205
ID Verde Limited£180
Chant Lock & Security Service£164
Steve Porter Transport Ltd£67
The Sign Company£60
Seasafe Systems Ltd£51
adjustments (re: journals relating to miscode in earlier or later periods)-£11,513
Cowes Harbour Commission£1,120
Grand Total£383,750

‘Professional Services’
News OnTheWight also persisted in seeking more detail about costs filed under ‘Professional Services’.

IWC says these organisations provide technical, marine and Designated Person Ashore services to them –

SupplierTotal Aug 2018 to Sep 2020
Canark Marine Ltd£1,200
Cornerstone Barristers£4,500
Cummins UK£386
GPC card£600
Lester Aldridge LLP£89,779
Longitude Engineering£56,387
Marine and Risk Consultants Limited£5,479
BDB Pitmans LLP£3,860
Systra Ltd£13,600
Grand Total£175,793

Banking fees
Banking fees of £16,953 seemed high, so we asked why that was. The spokesperson explained,

“As fewer transactions are carried out with cash there are higher transaction fees. In this case Stripe fees (Stripe is our third-party payment processor) are charged to GL code GL 434001 ‘Banking Fees’.  

“Stripe charge £0.20 per transaction plus 1.4% of transaction amount.”

Other costs
Medical Fees of £5,291 covered the ML5 Medical, a seafare’s medical, when doctors decide on fitness to work safely at sea.

Operational Equipment amounting to £75,956 was described as “All equipment purchased to facilitate the operation of the service”, but IWC failed to provide a breakdown of these costs.

Let’s not forget that all of this was kicked off thanks to a detailed Freedom of Information request made by the Floating Bridge Stakeholders’ and Engineers’ Group.

More on the way
We still have more to publish on this, make sure you see them all by signing up for our daily email newsletter and reading the Deep Dive Series.

Image: Steinar Engeland under CC BY 2.0