A garden bridge for London?
 

<i>Members of the public are being asked for their views on £150m plans for a "garden" bridge over the River Thames.

The bridge, the idea of actress Joanna Lumley and designed by London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic cauldron creator Thomas Heatherwick, would be covered with trees, plants and shrubs.<i>

The idea's been around for a few months, but is nowhere near formal application for planning permission, let alone getting funding - but on the other hand, Joanna Lumley has form in charming/shaming/bulldozing politicians into getting things done, and Heatherwick is flavour of the moment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24766900

Oops, messed up my "close italics".

I remember reading about this a couple years ago! Interesting idea!

I think it sounds lovely. Besides the cost, what would be the argument against it?

"no noise or traffic where the only sounds will be birdsong and bees "

She has not been on the Thames then ;-)

"Besides the cost, what would be the argument against it?"

Cost. We're closing hospital wards and forcing people out of their houses for the crime of having one bedroom too many. Food banks have never been under such pressure.

Plus the fact that the substantial amount of public gardens in the Temple area, and the Bernie Spain Gardens on the opposite side of the river, are completely unused.

Arguing London needs more parks and gardens, with no further explanation, is as batty as arguing it needs more museums or theatres.

Or air-headed actresses with delusions about their importance.

Well flanner's sobering look at it will probably win the day, for good reason but to a tourist it just looks lovely and one could say an investments in drawing tourists to London will benefit all of British society - same reason the Royals are dotred on with so much money and special rights -

I wonder if in such troubled times as flanner sagely points out why or if the Royals have taken substantial cuts - but the Red Herring to me argument about the Royals bringing in tourists and their money to Britain and especially London could well be applied also to such schemes as this wonderful bridge.

For me I hope the scheme takes seeds and grows to fruition.

Somehow the phrase "King Charles's head" comes to mind.

But the tourists won't be paying for it, taxpayers will. I think it looks a lovely idea but I'm with Flanner. The money won't appear by magic - that's £150m which will have to come out of another budget. If I'm possibly going to lose my job in the latest round of government funding cuts for social services, I'm not thrilled to hear there's spare money for non-essentials and vanity projects.

anic - I of course feel for you and your many compatriots economic woes - I can certainly relate to that - but if you substitute the world "royals" in your post above for "tourists" how would that be any different - taxpayers pay for the royals not tourists - so the old canard is that the royal family brings in money from tourism - especially Americans who find it so so "quaint" - a favorite word Yanks have when talking about England - and yes to many the UK is England. Period.

Anyway I would hope that the royals would take some cuts and presume they have in some times of economic problems.

New things like the Tate Modern, Millennium Brige, the whole South Bank practicaly - these cost money but turn on tourists and actually make money by helping to attract tourist.

That is why I think it is rather myopic of flanner and you to not see that - that ironically it may help your evconomy rather than be a drain on it.

I would have added Olympic areas to the list but that indeed was a real drain it seems, even keeping tourists for those weeks away from London!

anyway London is one of the great cities of the world and by not making the mistakes of IMO some Italian towns where nothing post-Renaissance is allowed to desecrate the ancient cities - to me turning them into museums pieces (the huge new sky scrapers in The City would never be allowed in say Rome or Florence - perhaps not even Milan - London has kept pace with the times and it is all the more appealing because of it.