London Assembly Member Darren Johnson says he’s “shocked” that the public won’t have guaranteed access to the proposed Garden Bridge connecting Temple and the South Bank.
The bridge, which is backed by actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley, is due to receive £60m of public funding, including £30m from Transport for London which is chaired by Mayor Boris Johnson.
However despite paying more than a third of the scheme’s expected £159m bill, Assembly Member Johnson says taxpayers will have no guaranteed access right to use it.
Instead, access will be dependent upon a travel plan agreed between the Garden Bridge Trust and Lambeth and Westminster Councils.
Assembly Member Johnson has previously criticised the lack of a cycle path on the bridge and says plans to close it to the public between midnight and 6am means “there is effectively no bridge for at least a quarter of the day.”
On Thursday he said: “I was really shocked to discover that this bridge is receiving £60m from the joint transport budgets of the Mayor and the national government, but the public have no guaranteed right of way.
“Given the scale of public funding for this bridge I would have expected the Mayor to have pinned down guarantees that Londoners will be able to use this bridge to cross the river 24/7 in ten or twenty years’ time.”
