London mayor Sadiq Khan has commissioned a review of the controversial Garden Bridge project.
The mayor has tasked MP for Barking and former chair of the public accounts committee Margaret Hodge to lead a review into the proposed £175m footbridge linking Temple with the South Bank.
The inquiry will examine whether value for money has been achieved from the taxpayers’ £60m contribution to the bridge.
It will also investigate the work of Transport for London, the Greater London Authority and other relevant authorities during the whole history of the project.
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Of the bridge’s total cost, £30m has been given by the Department for Transport and the same amount from TfL, though two-thirds of this latter sum was later made into a long-term loan.
£37m of the public money has already been spent by the Garden Bridge Trust, prompting Khan to cautiously support the project since his election, arguing that cancelling the scheme would cost twice as much as completing it.
However, since then there have been more doubts about the project’s viability. In August it emerged that several private donors had pulled out, meaning the trust had to raise more than £50m more of the £115m in necessary private funding, rather than another £30m.
Khan has stated no more taxpayer money should be spent on the bridge.
He said: “I’m clear that since the beginning of the project there hasn’t been the necessary standard of transparency and openness around the Garden Bridge. Nearly £40m of public money has already been spent on the Garden Bridge project, and Londoners deserve far more information about the decisions that have been made around how their money is being spent.”
Hodge has said the project is one in which she has “previously had an opinion on either for or against” but there are “clearly questions that remain unanswered around issues like procurement”.
The bridge has been constantly criticised over its cost, ownership and and public access and dates back to former mayor Boris Johnson, who originally championed it.
