The bridge is over: London's Garden Bridge trust concedes defeat

The Garden Bridge Trust announced on Monday that it would be shutting down the project to build and run a proposed bridge over the Thames in central London.

The Trust cited that lack of support from Sadiq Khan, and the office of the Mayor of London left it with "no choice" but to scrap the project.

The Mayor had written to Lord Mervyn Davies, chairman of the Garden Bridge Trust in April to say that he was not prepared to allocate funds to the annual maintenance of the bridge, which was a condition of planning consent.

A review of the project by Dame Margaret Hodge earlier this year found £37.4m had been spent already on the project, and it would still cost another £46.4m even if it was cancelled.

Despite attempts to keep the project alive through a potential benefactor investment, the trustees concluded that it would be impossible to proceed on what was designed to be a public project without the backing of the Mayor of London.

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. 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."

The Garden Bridge project will terminate contracts, and conclude donor funding agreements before the trust itself will be wound up.

"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," concluded Davies.

Khan's letter was heavily influenced by Hodge's recommendation that scrapping the project - while still costly - would be the best value option.

“Dame Margaret was right to conclude that the project progressing would expose the London taxpayer to additional financial risk, both with regard to the bridge's construction and its maintenance,” the mayor said in his letter. “I have been clear that this should not be allowed to happen. Accordingly, the Greater London Authority is unable to provide mayoral guarantees for this project.”