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The Garden Bridge project was an unsuccessful private proposal for a pedestrian bridge over the
River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
in London, England. Originally an idea of
Joanna Lumley Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley (born 1 May 1946) is an English actress, presenter, former model, author, television producer, and activist. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (1992 ...
, and strongly supported by then-
Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first directly elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The current m ...
Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
, the designer
Thomas Heatherwick Thomas Alexander Heatherwick, (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. He works with a team of around 200 architects, designers and makers from a studio and workshop in ...
worked with
Arup Group Arup (officially Arup Group Limited) is a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London which provides design, engineering, architecture, planning, and advisory services across every aspect of the built environment ...
on a proposal by Transport for London (TfL) for a new bridge across the Thames between
Waterloo Bridge Waterloo Bridge () is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at t ...
and
Blackfriars Bridge Blackfriars Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge, carrying the A201 road. The north end is in the City of London near the Inns of Court and Temple Ch ...
. The proposed concrete, steel,
cupronickel Cupronickel or copper-nickel (CuNi) is an alloy of copper that contains nickel and strengthening elements, such as iron and manganese. The copper content typically varies from 60 to 90 percent. (Monel is a nickel-copper alloy that contains a minimu ...
clad structure was intended to carry pedestrians, with no cycles or other vehicles. It was to have been located some from Waterloo Bridge and from Blackfriars Bridge, and have included some areas of planting. The project was to include a commercial building, built on former green space at the southern end of the bridge. The bridge was intended to be funded by raising over £140 million of private money (including taxpayer funding through charitable gift aid) and £60 million of promised public money, of which £30m was from Transport for London (£20m of this to be repaid over 55 years) and £30m from the Department for Transport, adding up to projected funding of over £200m. In January 2017, the trustees of the prospective owner of the bridge, the Garden Bridge Trust, stated that costs would "substantially exceed" an earlier revised total of £185m and, in April 2017, a report by
Margaret Hodge Dame Margaret Eve Hodge, Lady Hodge, (née Oppenheimer, formerly Watson; born 8 September 1944) is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barking since 1994. A member of the Labour Party, she previously served as ...
MP concluded, on the basis of the Garden Bridge Trust's own evidence, that the cost would be over £200m. If built, it was proposed that the bridge would have been open from 6am to midnight, with closures for the preparation for and holding of up to 12 private commercial events per year to raise funds for its maintenance. A planning condition required annual maintenance costs to be guaranteed by a third party and it was expected that this would be the Greater London Authority. The annual maintenance costs were variously estimated at between £2m and £3.5m, before allowing for the repayment of loan capital and interest. In July 2016 preparatory work for the bridge was halted and the Garden Bridge Trust put contractors on standby to allow for a financial review and because they had not cleared outstanding issues such as securing legal rights to the land on either side of the river, despite signing a contract for construction of the bridge in January 2016. In September 2016,
Sadiq Khan Sadiq Aman Khan (; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 until 2016. A member of the Labour Party, Khan is on the party's sof ...
, Mayor of London, announced a formal review by Margaret Hodge of the procurement processes in relation to the bridge project and its value for money. In October 2016, the National Audit Office reported on procurement issues and perceived value for money for that part of the cost of the project which was being met by funds (£30m) from the Department for Transport. In January 2017, the trustees of the Garden Bridge Trust (the limited company behind the project) said they were unable to conclude that the trust was a going concern. In February 2017, the Charity Commission for England and Wales found the financial management of the trust to be satisfactory, albeit with criticisms as to the trustees' approach. The subsequent report by Margaret Hodge MP was highly critical of the plan, its procurement, its cost, the risk to public funds, and lack of value for money. The Garden Bridge Trust formally announced on 14 August 2017 that it would be ending the project and that the Garden Bridge Trust itself would be wound up in accordance with the Companies Acts. The failed project cost £53m, including £43m of public money.


Ownership

The Garden Bridge Trust, a registered charity (charity registration number 1155246) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales, and with an exemption from use of the term "Limited", was to own the bridge, as private space in the public realm. The company was incorporated on 30 October 2013 under reference 08755461. Lord Davies of Abersoch is chairman of the trust and a director of the limited company.


Design

The bridge would have been long and across at its widest point. It would have run from the roof of
Temple tube station Temple is a London Underground station located at Victoria Embankment in the City of Westminster, close to its boundary with the City of London. It is on the Circle and District lines between Embankment and Blackfriars, and is in fare zone 1. ...
at the foot of Arundel Street on the north bank to Queen's Walk on the South Bank, next to ITV's London Studios, where a public green open space would have been sacrificed and built upon to provide a commercial building associated with the bridge, with removal of some 28 mature trees.
The new building would have housed a combination of public toilets, maintenance facilities, and operational areas, together with an events space which was intended to be occupied by Coin Street Community Builders who have a long lease of the area on which the building would have been constructed. The bridge would have featured trees and shrubs, hedging plants and climbers,
perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wid ...
s,
fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes exce ...
s and
grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...
es, and bulbs. Its construction would have required the felling of mature trees on both sides of the river, including 28 plane trees in the avenue on Queen's Walk which were planted in the 1960s as a living memorial to London's war dead. The bridge was to have been planted with some 270 immature trees. In order to limit the wind loading on the bridge structure the trees would have been maintained by pruning so that they never exceeded a height of at the bridge piers and near the bridge landings. Dan Pearson was appointed as landscape designer. Before granting planning permission,
Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. The council is currently composed of 31 Labour Party members and 23 Cons ...
raised concerns that the bridge would cause "significant harm" to a number of protected views from Waterloo Bridge,
Blackfriars Bridge Blackfriars Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge, carrying the A201 road. The north end is in the City of London near the Inns of Court and Temple Ch ...
, and the South Bank, but concluded that new views from the garden bridge would outweigh the damage caused. The bridge's proposed private owners claimed however that
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
stated in an assessment that "the Bridge would be as a picturesque incident in the riverscape….its low slung and restrained architecture and engineering will change the character of views but not cause harm to the setting of, and views to and from historic assets."


Operation

In November 2014, it was claimed that the bridge would be off limits to groups of eight or more people and to cyclists. The Garden Bridge Trust later said that groups of eight or more would not be banned and cyclists would be allowed to use the bridge, if they were to dismount and push their cycles. The bridge would have been open to the public for 18 hours each day, closing between midnight and 6am. The draft business plan allowed the Garden Bridge Trust to close the bridge for up to 12 days a year for commercial events. Further, the charity proposed to rent the rooftop of the bridge's South Bank landing podium for commercial purposes on every weekend between May and October. Nine bridges already span the between
Westminster Bridge Westminster Bridge is a road-and-foot-traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, linking Westminster on the west side and Lambeth on the east side. The bridge is painted predominantly green, the same colour as the leather seats in the ...
and London Bridge, seven of which can be crossed on foot. Projections of visitor numbers suggested that the bridge would have added another 3.5 million visitors a year, an 18% increase on 2014 numbers. In 2014, critics of the project began campaigning to have it brought under judicial review or another appeal process through the secretary of state. In November 2015, planning documents for the bridge revealed that public access to the bridge was to be controlled, including the use of the tracking of visitors' mobile phone signals to guard against overcrowding, a
video surveillance Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly tr ...
system and security staff known as "visitor hosts" who would have limited policing powers under a
Community Safety Accreditation Scheme Community safety accreditation schemes enable the chief constable of a Law enforcement in the United Kingdom, police force in the United Kingdom (Except Scotland ) to grant a limited range of police powers to employees of non-police organisation ...
, including the right to issue fines. The rules of the bridge were to prohibit "any exercise other than jogging, playing a musical instrument, taking part in a 'gathering of any kind', giving a speech or address, scattering ashes, releasing a balloon and flying a kite." The bridge's private owners claimed that conditions would be "similar" to those of the
Royal Parks The Royal Parks of London are lands that were originally used for the recreation, mostly hunting, of the royal family. They are part of the hereditary possessions of The Crown, now managed by The Royal Parks Limited, a charity which manages ...
. At a meeting at City Hall on 17 December 2015, Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London said, in defence of the project, "It's important that we don't rest on our laurels, but continue to adorn the city with things that will attract visitors … and to get it done within a four-year mayoralty is a very challenging thing." During the 2016–2017 review conducted by Dame Margaret Hodge for the Mayor of London, the only parties to express support for the bridge were Boris Johnson, the Garden Bridge Trust (the prospective owner of the bridge) itself and the ''
Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
'' while, on the other hand, "hostility" to the bridge was "substantial".


Funding

By August 2016, the proposed cost of the bridge had risen to £185 million, from the original estimate of £60m. When first promoted, it was claimed that the project would be financed entirely from private sources, but a total of £60m towards the capital cost was then committed from public funds, with £30m pledged from Transport for London (TfL) funds by Mayor of London Boris Johnson and £30m pledged by
HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury), occasionally referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and ...
. It was then agreed in November 2015 that £20m of TfL funds would be repaid over a period of 50 years as a loan. Further, the City of Westminster granted planning permission conditionally upon provision of a guarantee of maintenance costs. The Greater London Authority initially indicated willingness to underwrite those maintenance costs, estimated at a minimum of £2m a year, in perpetuity. In June 2013, the
Commissioner of Transport for London The Commissioner of Transport for London has management responsibility for Transport for London (TfL) and hence for the transport system throughout the City of London and Greater London in the United Kingdom. TfL is controlled by a board whose ...
, Sir
Peter Hendy Peter Gerard Hendy, Baron Hendy of Richmond Hill (born 19 March 1953) is a British transport executive and politician. He is the current chairman of Network Rail and was formerly the Commissioner of Transport for London. Education Hendy was ...
had stated that the public would meet no more than the "enabling costs" of the project of £4m. Nevertheless, the financial chief for Transport for London considered the proposed bridge extremely expensive when compared with other crossings on the Thames. For example, the Millennium Bridge had cost only £22m. Writing in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' in February 2016,
Ian Jack Ian Grant Jack (7 February 1945 – 28 October 2022) was a British reporter, writer and editor. He edited the ''Independent on Sunday'', the literary magazine ''Granta'' and wrote regularly for ''The Guardian''. Early life Jack was born in Fa ...
contrasted the £60m taxpayer support for the project with the closure of five Lancashire museums – two of which are nationally important – and 40 libraries. Jack described the bridge as unwanted and unnecessary and the closures as "cultural disembowelment". He asked whether a meeting between Joanna Lumley, a friend of designer
Thomas Heatherwick Thomas Alexander Heatherwick, (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. He works with a team of around 200 architects, designers and makers from a studio and workshop in ...
and Boris Johnson had played a part. Jane Duncan, president of the
Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...
requested the project be put on hold pending an investigation of the tendering process for the appointments of Heatherwick Studio and Arup. Ian Jack followed up in May with another article calling the bridge an oddity born of the " chumocracy", and correspondents from outside London were equally scathing. On 16 February 2016, Walter Menteth of Project Compass CIC, a procurement intelligence service, published a detailed report on the irregularities in the procurement leading to the appointment of Arup Group and
Thomas Heatherwick Thomas Alexander Heatherwick, (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. He works with a team of around 200 architects, designers and makers from a studio and workshop in ...
by Transport for London; the report concluded that an independent investigation would be appropriate before the public made any further financial commitment to the project. On 8 March 2016, the ''Evening Standard'' editor Sarah Sands wrote in defence of the bridge: In the 17 months to 31 March 2016, the Garden Bridge Trust spent over £26 million, 80% of which was funded by Transport for London. In the same period, the group raised £13 million in new private donations. However, the project's financing status deteriorated. During the same period in which the project's cost estimate was revised upward from £60 million to over £200 million (as of April 2017), the Garden Bridge Trust lost two major donors, causing a reduction in private funding pledges to £69 million. No new pledges had been obtained since August 2016. Sadiq Khan, who had been elected Mayor of London in May 2016, undertook an investigation of Johnson's decisions in relation to the procurement process for the bridge. In May 2016, he published a draft version of the Garden Bridge Trust business case for the bridge which showed that donations to the Trust from unnamed private companies, organisations and individuals totalled £83.1 million, representing the privately pledged money; this included £43.75m from donors who chose to remain anonymous. London Assembly Member Tom Copley called for transparency on private donations to the project, asking if donations had been received from companies which may benefit or have benefited from Transport for London contracts. The Charity Commission case report published on 28 February 2017 subsequently found that the processes for awarding of contracts were robust, and that benefactors were not party to contracts made by the charity. In July 2016 Dan Anderson of Fourth Street published a review of the Garden Bridge's Draft Operations and Maintenance Business Plan. Anderson's report concluded that "After detailed analysis of the Operations and Maintenance Business Plan it is this author's considered opinion that the basic business model is flawed and the Business Plan targets are optimistic at best, but more likely unachievable". On 11 July 2016 the BBC reported that preparatory work for the bridge had been halted to allow City Hall to review the finances. Sadiq Khan said that no more public money would be spent on the bridge. The halted work would have cost £3m for infrastructure preparation in the Tube station at Temple on the north bank of the Thames so that the bridge structure could be built on its roof. A Garden Bridge Trust spokesman said that the Garden Bridge Trust had signed a costs agreement with TfL which included a repayment schedule. On 26 July 2016, the BBC reported that the project had run into financial trouble and that the Garden Bridge Trust was seeking an extension of a £15m underwriting of the project: "tough questions are being asked in Whitehall about the footbridge and its public value". The additional assurance of the underwriting extension was needed in order for the Garden Bridge Trust to complete and file its statutory accounts, due on 31 July 2016. However, on Friday 29 July 2016, the last day on which it could validly do so, the Garden Bridge Trust changed its accounting reference date so as to extend its accounting period from 31 October 2015 to 31 March 2016, a further five months, postponing its obligation to file any accounts. On 8 August 2016, the National Audit Office formally announced that during Autumn 2016 it was to investigate the Department for Transport's handling of its £30 million grant to the Garden Bridge project. The audit would not seek to determine the value for money of the project as a whole. The Director of the audit team was to be Rebecca Sheeran. The National Audit Office invited submission of evidence for its investigation. The National Audit Office duly reported in October 2016. In an interview with
Evan Davis Evan Harold Davis (born 8 April 1962) is an English economist, journalist, and presenter for the BBC. He has presented ''Dragons' Den'' since 2005. In October 2001, Davis took over from Peter Jay as the BBC's economics editor. He left this ...
on ''
BBC Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availab ...
'' on 17 August 2016, Lord Davies of Abersoch said that the Garden Bridge Trust had raised some £69.5 million ("call it £70 million") of private funds in addition to £60 million of public funds. Some who had offered funding had never entered into legally binding commitments to pay and "one or two" had withdrawn from the project. Further, delays in the project now meant that the costs had risen to £185 million and that the bridge would not be completed before 2019. The figures of increased cost and the reduction in funds raised, together with the longer timescale, were then confirmed by the Garden Bridge Trust. In September 2016, the Mayor of London announced a formal review into project's finances and value for money. Dame Margaret Hodge conducted an inquiry into the planned structure. The mayor's office said she would investigate whether value for money had been achieved from the taxpayers' contribution and investigate the work of bodies such as Transport for London and the Greater London Authority. The Hodge Report was published in April 2017. In January 2017, the trustees of the Garden Bridge Trust stated that they expected the bridge's costs to "substantially exceed" the existing estimate of £185 million, and the Hodge Report in April 2017 stated that costs were estimated to be over £200 million.


National Audit Office report

On 11 October 2016, the National Audit Office reported the results of its inquiries into the £30 million funding provided for the Garden Bridge by the Department for Transport. The report recorded that in the Department's assessment of the original business case for the Bridge there was seen to be a significant risk that the project could represent poor value for money but the Department agreed to make the £30 million contribution anyway. The manner in which the funding was provided, by block grant to Transport for London left the Department with limited oversight of its own support to the Garden Bridge Trust. This arrangement simplified the Trust's access to public funding through a single source but it also made TfL responsible for assuring and overseeing all of the £60 million public funding and for ensuring value for money for taxpayers' investment. There was initially a cap on the amount of the Department's funding that could be used by the Garden Bridge Trust for pre-construction activity, but this cap was relaxed on three separate occasions, on two of those occasions against the advice of civil servants and on one of them by way of formal Ministerial Direction from the Secretary of State. The report summarised that:


Charity Commission report

On 28 February 2017 the Charity Commission published a Case Report which commented on the financial management of the Trust. The Charity Commission concluded that trustees had been meeting their duties and were acting in compliance with charity law; there was no concern about the management of conflicts of interest; the charity's financial management met required standards; trustees provided strategic leadership and direction to the charity and its staff to help it deliver its purpose; trustees understood their roles and duties and responsibilities as trustees; the Commission saw evidence of robust and informed decision-making. Arrangements to award contracts since the charity had been formed appear to have been robust. There was evidence of significant trustee engagement and some benchmarking of hourly rates and materials. However, trustees did not fully explore the opportunities to compare the critical paths of other comparable infrastructure projects and thus better enable themselves to assess project risk. The Commission went on to comment that the charity's accounts had been filed and had identified ongoing uncertainty over whether the charity was a going concern. The Commission considered that, given the public interest, the trustees could have provided more detail in their annual report about the progress made, given the expenditure incurred and the challenges addressed. The charity held no reserves but expected to meet any obligations from the use of its restricted funds. Given the reliance on using restricted funds the Commission would have expected a fuller description of how these funds, including the guarantee, could be used with greater detail on how the charity would meet its liabilities in the event of closure.


Planning process


Initial planning approval

The full planning applications for the project were submitted to Westminster and Lambeth Councils on 30 May 2014, and it was originally intended, subject to receiving planning permission and raising the necessary funds, that construction of the bridge would start in 2015 and be completed by 2018. The planning application was approved by Lambeth Council (local authority on the south side of the bridge), subject to conditions, in November 2014. Westminster City Council passed a plan for the bridge on 2 December 2014 by a vote of three to one. In December 2014, Boris Johnson approved the scheme to build the bridge, with construction then expected to start in 2015.


Judicial review

In January 2015, a legal challenge of Lambeth's planning permission was brought by Michael Ball, former director of the Waterloo Community Development Group, with the support of local opposition group Thames Central Open Spaces. On 21 April 2015, permission was granted by The Hon. Mr Justice Ouseley for a full judicial review of Lambeth's decision to grant planning permission on the grounds that the impact of views on heritage assets (particularly Somerset House) had not been properly considered, and Lambeth had not adequately ensured the ongoing maintenance of the bridge. However, it was agreed the case should be dismissed after Lambeth and the trust agreed to enter into a planning obligation requiring the trust to submit a plan for the maintenance of the bridge for approval by the Council, and to provide a surety or guarantor for the trust's ongoing maintenance obligations. The Greater London Authority has guaranteed the maintenance costs. A second judicial review, of Lambeth's decision to allow a variation of the lease on the South Bank, was dismissed in September 2016.


Lease and permission

On 25 September 2015, Lambeth Council suspended negotiations with the Garden Bridge Trust over the terms of the lease, which would be required at the South Bank end of the bridge. Lambeth's position was that funds for the bridge should not be provided by Transport for London, that the £30m of funding from Transport for London was not justified, and that Lambeth would permit the bridge only if it was assured that the project's funds would not be taken from Transport for London. Negotiations were resolved in November 2015. However, in March 2016 it was reported that Lambeth Council had put the necessary lease modifications in place. Permission from the Coin Street Community Builders, a housing trust which holds a long-term lease over part of the land needed to construct the southern approaches, was also required for the bridge's construction. In March 2016, in "a last ditch" attempt to stop the bridge, local politicians wrote to the housing trust urging it to refuse permission, although the housing trust indicated that it was not in a position to oppose the decisions of elected governments. The planning permission for the bridge had been due to expire in December 2017.


Project collapse


Hodge report

Margaret Hodge's report for the Mayor of London was published in April 2017. It found that: there had been multiple failings from the start; the business case for construction of the bridge was weak; the purpose of the bridge was confused and unclear; the Garden Bridge Trust had raised only £69m in private pledges of funding; the final cost if built would now exceed £200m of capital expenditure, excluding the amount of any possible endowment for maintenance; the project was controversial and unpopular and the Garden Bridge Trust was unlikely to be able to raise the money, and that taxpayers should accept the loss of public money already spent that would result from cancelling the project and avoid further waste of public funds. She also concluded that the appointments in 2013 of Heatherwick Studio (for design and consulting services) and Arup (for engineering and project management services) "were not open, fair or competitive procurements … and er review hadrevealed systematic failures and ineffective control systems at many levels". Architecture critic
Rowan Moore Rowan Moore is an architecture critic. Rowan William Gillachrist Moore was born on 22 March 1961. His brother is the journalist, newspaper editor and Margaret Thatcher's official biographer Charles Moore, Baron Moore of Etchingham, and his g ...
described the project as "a landmark of the post-truth era" and a vanity project by Boris Johnson.


Refusal of mayoral guarantee

In response to the Hodge report, Mayor of London
Sadiq Khan Sadiq Aman Khan (; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 until 2016. A member of the Labour Party, Khan is on the party's sof ...
, Johnson's successor, announced on 28 April 2017 that he would not provide a guarantee for the future running costs of the bridge, due to concerns about the project's financial viability. Since the guarantee was a condition of planning permission, the mayor's refusal had the effect of ending the project.


Formal abandonment

On 14 August 2017 after months of uncertainty the Garden Bridge Trust entirely abandoned the project. The BBC London transport correspondent Tom Edwards described the situation as a shambles which was "an embarrassing mess for the capital ... already descend nginto finger pointing and a blame game over who is culpable for wasting £46.4m of public money". In February 2019 it was revealed that the total public cost had been £43m.


References


External links


Interview with Heatherwick
in the ''
Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
''
Thames Central Open Spaces
{{Boris Johnson 2017 in London Thomas Heatherwick Proposed bridges in the United Kingdom Unbuilt buildings and structures in the United Kingdom Pedestrian bridges in London Proposed infrastructure in London