MP slams spending priorities
AN MP has slammed the Government for approving £30m for a ‘ vanity project’ garden bridge in London while refusing £100,000 to install safety cameras on a notorious stretch of Runcorn-Chester motorway.
Chris Matheson, Labour, said he had asked a transport minister for the cash to spend on police and Highways England traffic CCTV but was refused.
And fellow Labour MP Stephen Pound, Ealing North, accused him of making a ‘Brexit argument’ or there being an either-or option.
He said Mr Matheson should ‘let his spirits soar with the imagination of this wonderful project’.
Mr Matheson, who represents the City Of Chester, said the garden bridge project had been subject to ‘very little financial and accounting responsibility and oversight’, and his comments followed Labour MP Kate Hoey’s detailed criticisms of the scheme and its cost, which has risen to £185m.
Reflecting on the Government’s refusal to approve £100,000 for cameras on the M56, he said: “Yet at the same time we can find £30m to pour into a black hole, which my honourable friend tells us is a vanity project, with several big-name backers but no clear benefit to the community.
“Will the minister tell the house in his response whether he thinks that £30m spent on a vanity project garden bridge in London is better expenditure than £100,000 on motorway safety cameras in Cheshire?
“Is the garden bridge receiving this level of public money simply because it is in London rather than the North West?”