I was interested in reading a letter from Diana Noyce about building a bridge from East Cowes to Cowes.

In 2012 I attended an East Cowes Town Council meeting as a member of the public, before being a councillor, and at that meeting three students from Southampton University gave a presentation on having a bridge across the Medina.

They said you cannot build a fixed bridge where the floating bridge runs because the land is too low and the yachts with tall masts would not get underneath and I agree.

If you want a fixed bridge it would have to be further down the Medina at the point of Saunders Way and would cost £17m.

About 20 years ago, a fixed bridge was going to be built there, but the government pulled out of giving money to the IW Council. The road at Saunders Way is wider to take more traffic to the bridge.

The students did not say an up-and-down bridge like Tower Bridge in London could not be built there, as they only looked at a fixed bridge which East Cowes Town Council asked them to do.

I worked at Chatham Dockyard, Kent, and they had three basins and two up-and-down bridges, which folded in half to let the County class destroyers through.