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| The Guardian view on London’s garden bridge: a worthless vanity project | The Guardian view on London’s garden bridge: a worthless vanity project |
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| The garden bridge project, the superfluous and now abandoned plan to build a Thames crossing in the richest and best connected heart of London, may one day be judged the peak of the capital’s narcissistic hubris. It was a vanity project of a group of cronies that included the then mayor Boris Johnson – the man who is now Britain’s face to the world – with the then chancellor, George Osborne, the celebrity Joanna Lumley and her protege, the designer Thomas Heatherwick, masquerading as public benefactors. Between them, mayor and chancellor were in a position to commit up to £60m of public money, of which nearly £40m has been spent. | The garden bridge project, the superfluous and now abandoned plan to build a Thames crossing in the richest and best connected heart of London, may one day be judged the peak of the capital’s narcissistic hubris. It was a vanity project of a group of cronies that included the then mayor Boris Johnson – the man who is now Britain’s face to the world – with the then chancellor, George Osborne, the celebrity Joanna Lumley and her protege, the designer Thomas Heatherwick, masquerading as public benefactors. Between them, mayor and chancellor were in a position to commit up to £60m of public money, of which nearly £40m has been spent. |
| It is a measure of the project’s flakiness that, now that the two have moved on, the project has collapsed. A great deal of public money that might have been profitably invested in the cash-starved Midlands and the north has been wasted. But at least the taxpayer has been spared a continuing cost that might have run into further millions, and a folly that would have stood for all that was worst about the chumocracy years of the Cameron era. | It is a measure of the project’s flakiness that, now that the two have moved on, the project has collapsed. A great deal of public money that might have been profitably invested in the cash-starved Midlands and the north has been wasted. But at least the taxpayer has been spared a continuing cost that might have run into further millions, and a folly that would have stood for all that was worst about the chumocracy years of the Cameron era. |
| The garden bridge was hyped as London’s answer to New York’s High Line, a community-inspired privately financed redevelopment of a derelict and redundant piece of industrial transport infrastructure that wound through a rundown area of Manhattan. Adapted as a high-rise park with an innovative garden design and a relaxed environment, it has become one of the city’s most visited destinations. | The garden bridge was hyped as London’s answer to New York’s High Line, a community-inspired privately financed redevelopment of a derelict and redundant piece of industrial transport infrastructure that wound through a rundown area of Manhattan. Adapted as a high-rise park with an innovative garden design and a relaxed environment, it has become one of the city’s most visited destinations. |
| The garden bridge was something entirely different: a purpose-built, private space underwritten by the taxpayer linking some of the capital’s most valuable real estate on either side of the river. However enchanting the views up and down the Thames might have been through the trees, the project always appeared to be more about the whims of the people backing it than about the value it would add to the already wealthy surrounding area or the benefit it would bring to the people who would use it. | The garden bridge was something entirely different: a purpose-built, private space underwritten by the taxpayer linking some of the capital’s most valuable real estate on either side of the river. However enchanting the views up and down the Thames might have been through the trees, the project always appeared to be more about the whims of the people backing it than about the value it would add to the already wealthy surrounding area or the benefit it would bring to the people who would use it. |
| Well-designed, appropriate infrastructure investment like the redevelopment of the High Line is transformative. There are some parts of London and many places elsewhere that would benefit from it. As the IPPR North thinktank established last year, the gap in spending on transport infrastructure alone between London and northern English cities is £1,600 per person; if other cities had had the same level of investment as Londoners, the IPPR reckons it would have meant an extra £59bn over the decade. Yet the imbalance goes on: since the election, the government has reconfirmed its commitment to the major London project, Crossrail 2 with a budget of £31bn, but cancelled rail electrification programmes to south Wales, the Midlands, Sheffield and Nottingham, and downgraded electrification plans for the trans-Pennine route from Leeds to Manchester. | Well-designed, appropriate infrastructure investment like the redevelopment of the High Line is transformative. There are some parts of London and many places elsewhere that would benefit from it. As the IPPR North thinktank established last year, the gap in spending on transport infrastructure alone between London and northern English cities is £1,600 per person; if other cities had had the same level of investment as Londoners, the IPPR reckons it would have meant an extra £59bn over the decade. Yet the imbalance goes on: since the election, the government has reconfirmed its commitment to the major London project, Crossrail 2 with a budget of £31bn, but cancelled rail electrification programmes to south Wales, the Midlands, Sheffield and Nottingham, and downgraded electrification plans for the trans-Pennine route from Leeds to Manchester. |
| Last week, a new analysis of premature death rates suggested that young people in the north of England are dying at a much greater rate than young people in the more prosperous south. The garden bridge, supposedly a largely private initiative, seemed to soak up public cash. If as much had been spent in Manchester or Liverpool, it might not have ended the outrage of the north-south life gap. But it would at least have acknowledged that the government has an overwhelming duty to act – and that here is a gap that genuinely must be bridged. | Last week, a new analysis of premature death rates suggested that young people in the north of England are dying at a much greater rate than young people in the more prosperous south. The garden bridge, supposedly a largely private initiative, seemed to soak up public cash. If as much had been spent in Manchester or Liverpool, it might not have ended the outrage of the north-south life gap. But it would at least have acknowledged that the government has an overwhelming duty to act – and that here is a gap that genuinely must be bridged. |
| • This article was amended on 15 August 2017. An earlier version referred to Thomas Heatherwick as the architect of the garden bridge project. Heatherwick is not a qualified architect but he was the designer of the proposed bridge. | • This article was amended on 15 August 2017. An earlier version referred to Thomas Heatherwick as the architect of the garden bridge project. Heatherwick is not a qualified architect but he was the designer of the proposed bridge. |