A new High Court challenge has been mounted against the capital’s £175m garden bridge – just hours after London mayor Sadiq Khan said that cancelling the scheme would cost more than building it.
The legal challenge has been made by a local resident, who claims the decision last month by the London Borough of Lambeth to change the terms of a public open space lease, which would be required to allow construction of the crossing, was unlawful. The open space was created as part of the Jubilee Walkway along the River Thames, and was opened in 1988.
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Lawyers for Jenny O’Neill, who lives close to the site on the South Bank in Lambeth, are arguing that the council failed to properly consider the loss of the public open space or its status as an Asset of Community Value, a new designation under the Localism Act intended to protect such assets from disposal.
O’Neill is a member of Thames Central Open Spaces (TCOS), a group formed to campaign against the Garden Bridge. She said: “The impact of the Garden Bridge will be devastating on local residents. Decisions as important as this need to be taken properly and got right, for Londoners now and for coming generations.”
The challenge comes less than 24 hours after the new London mayor spoke about the bridge in his first Question Time, and explained his reasons for changing his stance from the election trail and supporting the project.
Khan claimed it would cost taxpayers twice as much to cancel the crossing as to complete it, reported the Evening Standard.
“From the point at which I became mayor, it was quite clearly in London taxpayers’ financial interest to complete the Garden Bridge project. It would simply cost Londoners more to cancel the project now, than it would to finish building the Garden Bridge.
“So I will support the building of the Garden Bridge, but I am demanding that the project is made more accessible and open to all Londoners in return.”
Khan said that scrapping the Thames crossing would waste almost £40m of public money already spent. He said £37.7m of the £60m pledged by Transport for London (TfL) and the government had already been spent. If the project was scrapped now, this amount would be lost in full. If built, the Bridge’s Trust would repay a £20m loan from TfL, plus £22m in VAT to the Treasury, meaning taxpayers would have paid £18m towards the scheme.
The Garden Bridge is planned to span the River Thames between Temple tube station on the north bank and the Queen’s Walk on the South Bank.
