London mayor Sadiq Khan says public should be ‘very angry’ over wasted funds as charity announces closure of project.

The controversial Thames garden bridge has finally been scrapped after £37m of public money was spent on a project the London mayor said had no realistic chance of being completed.

The Garden Bridge Trust said it could no longer proceed without the support of Sadiq Khan, who responded by saying Londoners should be “very angry” that so much cash had gone towards a scheme backed by his Tory predecessor, Boris Johnson.

“It’s my duty to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent responsibly,” Khan said. “I have been clear since before I became mayor that no more London taxpayers’ money should be spent on this project and when I took office, I gave the Garden Bridge Trust time to try to address the multiple serious issues with it.”

Proponents argued that it would be a big tourist asset and a useful pedestrian link, critics said it was in a crowded section of London already well served by bridges. They also questioned why taxpayers’ money should be spent on a link that would be privately run, could set its own rules, and would close at night and for private events.

Lord Davies wrote to Khan outlining the reasons why the trust had taken the decision. He said that “with great regret that trustees have concluded that without mayoral support the project cannot be delivered”.

“We had made great progress obtaining planning permission, satisfying most of our planning conditions and we had raised £70m of private money towards the project,” he said.

“[The bridge] would have been a unique place, a beautiful new green space in the heart of London, free to use and open to all, showcasing the best of British talent and innovation. It is all the more disappointing because the trust was set up at the request of TfL [Transport for London], the organisation headed up by the mayor, to deliver the project.”

he bridge, designed by Thomas Heatherwick, would have extended from Temple on the north side of the Thames to the South Bank and featured 270 trees and thousands of plants. The proposal was originally devised by the actor Joanna Lumley and won support from Johnson and the then chancellor, George Osborne, who committed £60m of public money to the scheme.

The rest was intended to be raised from corporate donations, but fierce local opposition and fruitless talks with the housing trust occupying the south side of the project delayed the start of construction, and costs rose. In April, Khan had written to Davies, the chair of the trust, announcing that he would not provide the financial guarantees needed for construction to begin.

Khan’s withdrawal came after he commissioned the Labour MP and former chair of the public accounts committee Margaret Hodge to investigate whether the bridge still represented value for public money.

Hodge’s report, published in April, recommended that the bridge be scrapped. She pointed to multiple failings and argued that the business case for the bridge was “incredibly weak” and based on unconvincing evidence, and said it had been given special treatment under the support of Johnson as mayor.

The project, her report concluded, was inspired more by politics than value for money. “What started life as a project costing an estimated £60m is likely to end up costing more than £200m,” Hodge wrote.

Reliant on corporate donations, the Garden Bridge Trust only secured £69m in private pledges, leaving a gap of at least £70m, with no new pledges obtained since August 2016.

Lumley said in April that Khan’s decision to remove financial backing was "absolutely shattering, deveasting", adding that the project had become politicised.

Kate Hoey, the MP for Vauxhall, and the councillors Jennie Mosley and Kevin Craig, who campaigned with the local community against the bridge, said they would be seeking a full public inquiry and “accountability for the garden bridge trustees in respect of lost taxpayers’ money”.

The London assembly member Tom Copley said: “It is a scandal that the cheerleaders for the bridge were allowed to waste so much public money by [Khan’s] predecessor. Boris Johnson drove forward this vanity project during his mayoralty, and the lion’s share of the blame for this whole debacle must fall at his feet.”

Source: The Guardian