London's controversial Garden Bridge scheme was officially abandoned by its developer this week, representing a loss of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

 

The Garden Bridge Trust said it had no choice but to wind up the project because of a lack of ongoing support for the proposed footbridge from the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.

 

The Mayor wrote to the trust chairman in April stating he was not prepared to commit any further taxpayer money to take the project forward. This came after an independent review of public contributions to the bridge by Dame Margaret Hodge MP had raised concerns over the scheme’s escalating costs and a private investment gap of around £70M.

 

Around £37M of public investment had already been spent on the project and the figure could rise to almost £50M with cancellation costs.

 

Responding to the news Sadiq 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 and address the multiple serious issues with it.

 

“Londoners will, like me, be very angry that taxpayers have now lost tens of millions of pounds – committed by the previous Mayor on a project that has amounted to nothing.”

 

Taxpayers’ Alliance chief executive John O’Connell backed the Mayor and said: “The fact that the Garden Bridge Trust has been unable to raise the necessary funds privately just goes to show how deeply flawed the rationale for this vanity project was.

 

“The Mayor is to be commended for pulling the plug, but those responsible for wasting almost £50M of taxpayers' money on this debacle should hang their heads in shame.”

 

But Garden Bridge Trust chairman Lord Mervyn Davies commented: “We are incredibly sad that we have not been able to make the dream of the Garden Bridge a reality and that the Mayor does not feel able to continue with the support he initially gave us.

 

“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 added: “It is a sad day for London because it is sending out a message to the world that we can no longer deliver such exciting projects.”

 

(Image: Arup)