Controversial Garden Bridge project scrapped

It has taken nearly four years and £37.4 million of taxpayers’ money, but the controversial Garden Bridge project to build a pedestrian walkway across the Thames has finally been scrapped for good.

The Garden Bridge Trust, the charity responsible for delivering the tree-covered span, has pulled the plug on a project that sharply divided public opinion. The decision is likely to cost the Department for Transport a further £9 million.

The trust blamed Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, for a lack of support. In a letter to Mr Khan, issued this morning, Lord Davies of Abersoch, the chairman, accused him of making “inaccurate statements to the media” and refusing to meet with the trust to discuss the scheme, which was originally the brainchild of the actress Joanna Lumley. “I made clear that I would make myself available to meet at any time,” he wrote. “You have just as insistently declined to meet.”

In April, Mr Khan declared that he was not prepared to underwrite the annual running costs of about £3 million. It followed a critical report by Dame Margaret Hodge, the senior Labour MP and former chairman of the public accounts committee, which concluded that “value for money for the taxpayer has not been secured”. The trust required the guarantee as a condition of the planning consent granted by Lambeth Council and the Port of London Authority.

Although the trust had hoped that another benefactor would step in to rescue the project, the estimated cost of which rose from £60 million to £200 million, largely due to delays, it concluded that it would not be able to proceed in the current political climate.

“This project that has always been conceived as a public project for all of those who live in or visit the capital, but it cannot succeed without the whole-hearted support of the mayor of London,” Lord Davies wrote. “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.

“On the subject of where the money has gone, we will, of course, account for every line of expenditure as part of the winding up operation.”

The Garden Bridge, which was designed by Thomas Heatherwick, had enjoyed strong support from Mr Khan’s predecessor as mayor, Boris Johnson. As a result, Transport for London committed £30 million of funding, £20 million of which was structured as a loan, and the Department of Transport another £30 million, £37.4 million of which has been spent. In August last year, Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, agreed a £9 million insurance policy for the bridge to cover its liabilities in the event of the project failing — money that is also now likely to be lost.

Mr Khan responded: “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.

“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.”