And finally… Charity paid £53m towards abandoned Thames garden bridge
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The charity behind a plan to build a garden bridge across the Thames spent £53.5 million without even beginning full construction, new figures have revealed.
The project, which was overseen by then London Mayor Boris Johnson, was officially abandoned in August after it lost the support of current London Mayor Sadiq Khan in April 2017.
Image by Thomas Heatherwick
Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the bridge was meant to be a tree- and plant-filled oasis across the Thames from Temple to South Bank.
A Transport for London (TfL) inquiry showed the Garden Bridge Trust spent £161,000 on a website and £417,000 on a gala for the abandoned project.
The design of the bridge cost more than £9m and the charity paid its executives £1.7m.
Of the total spent by the Garden Bridge Trust, £43m was public money – £24m from TfL and £19m from the Department for Transport (DfT). The rest came from donations and fundraising activities.
The official review concluded that a final £5.5m in DfT funding should be handed over to the trust as part of the cancellation agreement.
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