Critics say the charity behind the aborted Garden Bridge has ‘gone rogue’ after it refused to provide its public sector sponsor Transport for London with records of its key decisions despite the loss of close to £50 million of taxpayers’ money
The AJ revealed earlier this month that TfL had called upon the Garden Bridge Trust to produce copies of the minutes of its board meetings. (That's strange, the Commisioner of TfL allegedly loves a secret meeting)
As well as funding and helping to establish the trust in late 2013, TfL oversees the charity and had the right to attend these meetings.
However, following pressure from London Assembly’s oversight committee, TfL’s commissioner Mike Brown admitted before Christmas that it had failed to keep copies of the minutes. (How very appropriate Mike)
The oversight committee is continuing to investigate the scandal of the £200m Heatherwick-designed bridge amid continuing questions about how an estimated £46.4 million could have been spent on the project without construction being started.
In a letter dated January 9, replying to the request from TfL’s director of city planning Alex Williams, the trust’s executive director Bee Emmott (pictured) said the organisation did not consider that it was required to produce the minutes.
While the Garden Bridge’s 2015 deed of grant sets out TfL’s right to inspect copies of the trust’s records of the project’s progress along with income and expenditure, Emmott argued that this was never intended to include the ‘dealings of the trust’.
In the letter, she wrote: ‘As you know, we have been through an investigation by the Charity Commission, and have given them everything that they have asked for and been given a clean bill of health; and we have been through the Hodge Review, and given her everything that she had asked for – and we feel that there has to be a limit.
The trust’s refusal to provide copies of the minutes is astonishing. It begs the question of what they are trying to hide!!!
‘The time taken up by these exercises was both costly and a distraction from the primary business of the trust, and we do not feel it is right to add to that burden, on a purely speculative basis, at a time when the trust’s now very limited resources need to concentrate on closing down operations in a business-like way.’
Emmott - who worked at the bridge’s designer Heatherwick Studio before joining the Garden Bridge Trust - added that the trust had concerns about commercial confidentiality and was not covered by Freedom of Information laws.
She added: ‘As you know, TfL have been invited to trust board meetings and have attended the great majority of them, and have therefore been able to observe all dealings of the trust.’
TfL’s legal chief Howard Carter has now responded to Emmott to insist that the minutes be produced, demanding that she respond within 10 days.
‘I see no reason why the term “project records” would not encompass something as significant as board minutes, which are, clearly, the primary record for all significant decisions that were made in respect of the project,’ Carter wrote in his letter of January 22. ‘I am sure that on further consideration the trustees will accept that it is right and proper that its decision-making is entirely transparent to the public.’
The project is dead – I cannot see how concerns about ‘commercial confidentiality’ can apply in this instance
London Assembly and oversight committee member Tom Copley, who has been calling for the minutes to be published for several months, said TfL might now need to consider legal action to force the trust’s hand.
‘Arrogance and hubris have been the hallmark of the Garden Bridge Trust’s attitude to scrutiny and challenge over the years since its unfortunate inception,’ he said.
‘But even by their standards, the trust’s refusal to provide TfL with copies of the minutes of their board meetings is astonishing. It begs the question of what they are trying to hide – not just from the public but from the organisation that bankrolled them with millions of pounds of taxpayer cash.
‘The fact this project was set up at arms-length from TfL despite the level of public money being spent on it has led to problems with transparency and accountability from the very beginning.
‘Given the trust is winding up and the project is dead I cannot see how concerns about “commercial confidentiality” can apply in this instance. The trust may want the bridge to die as it lived – shrouded in secrecy – but taxpayers deserve to know what decisions were taken by those responsible for the loss of their money.’
Dan Anderson, a tourist attractions expert at consultant Fourth Street who has closely followed the Garden Bridge saga, said TfL and the trust seemed to be trying to top each other in terms of ‘outrageous’ behaviour.
‘TfL put £46 million into this project – they should have some proper documents somewhere,’ he said. ‘And now it appears that the Garden Bridge Trust has gone rogue and won’t provide them. How on earth did we get to this place?’
The Garden Bridge Trust declined to comment.
TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT :
So Athe Garden Bridge Trust refuses to make public, meetings held in secret..... Sounds familiar.
TFL's Mike Brown loves a secret meeting....
Remember deputy Mayor Dedring?
Went from loddying in favour of the company building the bridge, to working for them!
Vince Cable: TfL chief should face inquiry over £7m Garden Bridge grant
Transport for London boss Mike Brown should face investigation after overseeing a 2016 decision to plough millions of pounds of public money into the Garden Bridge, apparently in contravention of its own rules, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable has said
Amid continuing scrutiny over how an estimated £46.4 million was spent on the aborted project, Mike Brown last week confirmed that TfL had made a crucial judgement call in deciding to sign off a £7 million payment to the Garden Bridge Trust when the latter was poised to sign its construction contract with Bouygues in early 2016.
Brown, who has been TfL commissioner since September 2015, made the admission in a newly published letter to the chair of the London Assembly’s oversight committee, Len Duvall. In it he acknowledged that TfL had concluded that the trust had met all six conditions set out in the funding agreement between the two organisations.
Oh what a tangled web we weave !
As they say, 'Follow the money'.
5 comments:
They are all incompetent. Take the new taxi as an example. Sounds like a rubbish concept to me, basically we have got a petrol taxi, because 60 miles on battery doesn't cut it. If they had dispensed with the heavy batteries, and made a super lightweight taxi with a petrol engine they could've achieved a low polluting vehicle with a reasonable mile per gallon at far less cost. So far more environmentally efficient and a good vehicle. I certainly will not be investing any hard earned cash or time in the taxi trade until Uber are gone and this crazy fiasco ended. Wake up government and TFL, getting into the taxi trade is a failed business plan with your incompetences.
Has nobody asked Why has all the money this new taxi cost to create & manufacture for achieving a cleaner environment It still carries the burden the same 15 year age limitation of a diesel taxi?
Does TFL not realise how attractive buying a non time limited electric vehicle would be firstly to the initial buyer factoring in resale values and it would allow second hand owners to competitively refinance used electric vehicles and keep the conveyor belt going with increased productivity and natural wastage of a much publicised and politically driven vehicle.
Yet,we now see the new 'van aaken' like scramble taking place (remember them?) with gas conversion firms queuing up to be passed by TFl (some already passed) converting old 14/15 year old Metrocabs and TX's to run on approved liquid petroleum gas AND get an extra 5 years TFl plate recognition whilst the newest of the newest TXE electric cabs currently run for 15 years full stop?
Its a total madness which can only be deliberated and delivered by TFl.
But wait a minute.... Ive got it, When the Electric cab gets to being 15 years old we can all get it converted....to LPG for an extra 5 years!!!
If anyone can make it up nightmare solutions of the simplest decisions ..... we can always rely on TFL.
Be Lucky
greenbadgejohn (on twitter)
On the first week of the new TXE electric taxi being bought in London I really must raise the same old questions about TFl's failure to identify failings in Licensing this vehicle on the same age limit requirement of the Diesel TX4 counterpart it was designed to replace...but then TFl does have unexplained reasons for probably everything owing to its political agenderism but deliberate sabotage of this vehicle really must be recognised and I will explain why.
The 15 year age limit was brought in quite a few years ago by Mayor Boris to rid the streets of polluting diesels and gradually clean up the air in London... we all know how well that panned out with clean air levels at its worse and yet every year we lose hundreds of perfectly good vehicles in a failed effort to update taxi stocks and modernise engines (not taking any account vehicle servicing records was and still is a major error)
The Last diesel Taxi's were Euro 6 and the cleanest of cleanest diesels made (you cannot make a euro 7 unless you attempt to lower CO2 which is already 50% less in diesel than petrol engines, so here comes the electric cab at a whopping cost which we will all split into 15 segments of yearly cost exactly as the diesel engined vehicles were...but why?
Now the funny bit:
I know of Gas conversion garages/companies being Passed by TFl (and others being considered) to convert older vehicles to run on LPG on order to obtain a 5 year plate extension from 15 years to 20 years yet the newest and cleanest cab ever made still to this day has an age limit of 15 years when it should not have an age limit at all.
Imagine if you fancied getting a new Electric cab without an age limit, you would calculate your age and income against the longevity of the vehicle and then look for a return when you sell it maybe after a few years freehold, moreover a secondhand buyer would get a long use too and the spares and vehicle conveyor belt would become much healthier so would consumer confidence and dare I say it the air we all breathe in too... but right now 15 years of 70k + including finance costs simply do not add up in global costing and TFL know that.
There is absolutely no justifiable reason any electric driven vehicle should have an age limit and you can bet your bottom dollar as soon as private hire gets a fully electric vehicle this argument will be raised, so lets have it now.
Or in 15 years time TXe's will be being converted to run on LPG for an extra 5 years plate eh?.....
.... no I doubt it simply because I still remember the Van AAkens fiasco and LPG "approved" suppliers will go in exactly the same way...and us mugs will be holding the baby of conversion failings and parts once again.
Be Lucky
greenbadgejohn (on twitter)
They all think there above the LAW!!! ( FUNNY THAT )
They can use ordinary cars that cost so much less to buy and run. We cannot compete. Therefore the taxi business plan is a failure. This is why steam trains disappeared. People will not pay a fortune to travel in nostalgia on their daily commute.
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