The Thames garden bridge plan 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. 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. Reliant on corporate donations, the Garden Bridge Trust secured £69m in private pledges, leaving a gap of at least £70m, with no new pledges obtained since August 2016. 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. The garden bridge has not found its right moment, but I hope one day it will and that London continues to be open to ideas that make life here better.”

Source: The Guardian August 14, 2017 10:10 UTC