London’s Garden Bridge scrapped

A £200 million plan to build a garden bridge over the River Thames in central London has officially been scrapped.

The Garden Bridge Trust said it failed to raise private funds for the bridge, which would be covered in 270 trees and thousands of plants, since losing Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s support in April.

The review of the project in April recommended it be abandoned because of spiralling construction costs and a funding gap of over £70 million.

At least £37.4 million of public funds has already been spent on the project, and a further £9 million is at risk. In total, an estimated £46.4 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent, calculated as direct grants of about £26 million from the Department of Transport, around £11 million in services in kind from Transport for London (TfL), and the remainder in cancellation costs, Dame Margaret Hodge has said.

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 London taxpayers have now lost tens of millions of pounds - committed by the previous mayor on a project that has amounted to nothing."

But Foreign Secretary and former Mayor of London Boris Johnson accused Khan of shutting the project down out of spite, saying: “Labour has no vision for London and no ambition. The Garden Bridge was a beautiful project and could have been easily financed."

In a letter to Khan, chairman of the trust Lord Davies said: “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.

“The Garden 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, the organisation headed up by the mayor, to deliver the project. 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.”