Johnson blames his successor over bridge

BORIS JOHNSON has sought to blame successor Sadiq Khan for the collapse of the Garden Bridge project after coming under pressure over his handling of the scheme.

The former Mayor of London said he would have continued with the abandoned project if he were still in City Hall and insisted that “not a single penny of taxpayers’ money” was wasted on the bridge while he was in charge.

His Labour successor Mr Khan killed off the controversial plan after a damning report by Dame Margaret Hodge found it could have ended up costing more than £200m. But Mr Johnson claimed her probe was a “gimcrack affair” riddled with “peculiarities”, as he defended his support for the landscaped Thames pedestrian crossing.

In what was at times a chaotic hearing, members of the Greater London Assembly oversight committee had to raise their voices in an attempt to guide Mr Johnson back on to the topic of the bridge as he repeatedly digressed into praising his own record in office and criticising Mr Khan.

The Tory MP also attacked the current mayor for failing to give the project the political “push” it needed and claimed the Labour politician had spent £9m on it, adding to the £37m previous outlay, before cancelling it.

“It was like a bad love affair with Sadiq Khan, you could tell that his heart wasn’t really in it but he didn’t kill it,” Mr Johnson claimed.