Newly opened Ryde Pier walkway closed for maintenance works

The walkway was opened for festivalgoers over the weekend but has since closed for further maintenance work

A new pedestrian walkway on the Isle of Wight's Ryde Pier has been closed temporarily, a week after opening.

The pathway, which links Ryde Pier Head and Ryde Esplanade, opened following a year of building works in time for last week's Isle of Wight Festival.

A spokeswoman for Wightlink said the closure was needed for some additional maintenance work they were unable to complete before the event.

She confirmed the pathway would be open again by Friday evening.

Wightlink apologised to customers for the inconvenience, but confirmed the original footpath alongside the area where vehicles access the pier was still open.

Andy Whitlock from Knights Brown screwed in the final plank with Wightlink’s Dean Murphy for the walkway launch

The spokeswoman continued: "This project has been going on for well over a year, our aim was to open it for the festival and our ferries carried thousands of passengers over to the island.

"There's a couple of extra things we needed to do so we closed it yesterday [Wednesday] and will be opening again tomorrow."

She added that as the walkway has been built on a historic Victorian cast-iron piles next to the railway pier, there will be more work to carry out over the summer, but that could be done without closing it.

South Western Railway recently confirmed it would be reopening the Island Line for trains between Ryde Pier and Shanklin from 10 July.

A spokesperson for the rail service said the line was originally expected to open in June, but was delayed due to extreme weather where storms damaged scaffolding and made it unsafe to work.