Garden Bridge

Garden Bridge is a proposed pedestrian bridge over the River Thames in London, England. Conceived by the actress Joanna Lumley in 1998^[1] as a memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales^[2] and designed by Thomas Heatherwick, working with Arup,^[3] on a commission from Transport for London, the bridge will feature trees and plants.^[4][5] The bridge will be funded by £60 million of public money as well as private contributions. It will be maintained by public funds at an estimated £3.5 million per year. The bridge will be open to the public, but will be closed for at least 12 days each year for private events.

Foundation

The Garden Bridge Trust was launched on 1 November 2013 to oversee the project; it is proposed to be located at the National Theatre (overlooking the planned site).^[1][6] Lord Davies of Abersoch is the trust's chairman,^[6] and horticulturalist Dan Pearson has been engaged to arrange the planting.^[6]

Description

The bridge is planned to be 367 metres (1,204 ft) long^[7] and 30 metres (98 ft) across at its widest point. It would run from the roof of Temple station as a continuation of Arundel Street^[4] on the north bank to Queen's Walk by the London Studios, where a large public green open space would be redeveloped to provide a commercial building associated with the project. The bridge would feature trees, shrubs, and wildflowers. Its construction would require the felling of mature trees on both sides of the river, including 32 mature trees in the avenue on Queen's Walk, on the South Bank.

At a meeting at London’s City Hall on 17 December, Mayor Johnson stated, “It’s important that we don’t rest on our laurels, but continue to adorn the city with things that will attract visitors … and to get it done within a four-year mayoralty is a very challenging thing.”^[8]

Finance and Planning

By July 2014, the proposed cost of the bridge had risen to £175 million, from the original estimate of £60m.^[9] When first promoted, it was claimed that the project would be financed entirely from private sources, but a total of £60m towards the capital cost was then committed from public funds,^[9] with £30m pledged from Transport for London funds by Mayor of London Boris Johnson and £30m pledged by HM Treasury. The full planning application for the project was submitted on 30 May 2014, and it was originally intended, subject to receiving planning permission and raising the necessary funds, that the bridge would be commenced in 2015 and completed by 2018.^[10][11] The planning application was approved by Lambeth Council (local authority on the south side of the bridge), subject to conditions, in November 2014.^[12] Westminster City Council passed a plan for the bridge on 2 December 2014 by a vote of three to one.^[13] In December 2014, Boris Johnson approved the scheme to build the bridge, with construction then expected to start in 2015.^[14] During the design and construction stage of the project, Arup and Thomas Heatherwick will use Building Information Modeling.^[15]

Criticisms

Various criticisms of the project have been raised. In November 2014, it was claimed that the bridge would be off limits to groups of eight or more people and cyclists, and closed between midnight and 6am.^[16] However, the trust raising money to build the bridge has since stated that groups of 8 or more are not banned and cyclists will be allowed to use the bridge, although they will not be allowed to ride on it, but will be required to dismount and push their cycles.^[17] Initially presented as a privately funded project, a total of £60m of the estimated £175m cost is planned to be paid from public funds. Further, the City of Westminster granted planning permission conditionally upon provision of a guarantee of maintenance costs. Transport for London now plans to underwrite those maintenance costs, estimated at £3.5m a year, in perpetuity. In June 2013, the Commissioner of Transport for London, Sir Peter Hendy stated that the public would meet no more than the “enabling costs” of the project of £4m.^[18] The Trust is to close the bridge for at least 12 days a year for events, and is to rent the rooftop of the bridge’s landing podium for commercial purposes on every weekend between May and October.^[19] Westminster Council raised concerns that the bridge will cause “significant harm” to a number of protected views from Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, and the South Bank, but concluded that new views from the garden bridge would outweigh the damage caused.^[19]

The bridge is seen as not necessary for the South Bank area; nine bridges span the two miles (3.2 km) between Westminster Bridge and London Bridge, seven of which can be crossed by foot. Projections of visitor numbers suggest that the bridge would add another 3.5 million visitors a year, an 18% increase on 2014 numbers.^[20] Critics of the project are now campaigning to have it brought under judicial review or another appeal process through the secretary of state.^[21]

In January 2015, a legal challenge of Lambeth's planning permission was brought by Michael Ball, director of the Waterloo Community Development Group. On 21 April 2015, permission was granted by The Hon. Mr Justice Ouseley for a full judicial review of the project.^[22]

On 25 September 2015, Lambeth Council suspended negotiations with the Garden Bridge Trust over the terms of the lease, which would be required at the South Bank end of the bridge. Lambeth's position was that funds for the bridge should not be provided by Transport for London, that the £30m of funding from Transport for London was not justified, and that Lambeth would permit the bridge only if it was assured that the project's funds would not be taken from Transport for London.^[23]

In November 2015, planning documents for the bridge revealed that the public's access to the bridge would be heavily controlled, including tracking visitors' mobile phone signals to guard against overcrowding, an "enhanced" video surveillance system and granting "visitor hosts" limited policing powers under a Community Safety Accreditation Scheme, including the right to issue minor fines. The rules of the bridge would prohibit "any exercise other than jogging, playing a musical instrument, taking part in a 'gathering of any kind', giving a speech or address, scattering ashes, releasing a balloon and flying a kite."^[24]
Writing in the Guardian, Ian Jack contrasted the £60m taxpayer support for the project with the closure of five Lancashire museums -two of the which are nationally important -and forty libraries. Jack described the bridge as unwanted and unnecessary and the closures as "cultural disembowelment." He asked whether a meeting between Joanna Lumley, a friend of designer Thomas Heatherwick and Boris Johnson had played a part. Jane Duncan, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects has requested an investigation of the tendering process.^[25]

References

External links

• The Garden Bridge Trust
• Interview with Heatherwick
• Thames Central Open Spaces

Bridges of Central London (west to east) Vauxhall Lambeth Westminster Hungerford and Golden Jubilee Waterloo Garden (planned) Blackfriars Blackfriars Railway Millennium Southwark Cannon Street Railway London Tower Crossings of the River Thames Bridges in the United Kingdom