“George Osborne avoided official channels and Department for Transport oversight to offer the London mayor, Boris Johnson, funding for the garden bridge scheme, parliament’s spending watchdog has found, warning the project may not have been approved if the normal processes had been followed. …
… Sir Amyas Morse, of the National Audit Office, said of the project: “It is important to note that the results would not in normal circumstances suggest a compelling value for money case … The department’s own quantitative analysis suggested that there may or may not be a net benefit and, especially once concerns over deliverability were taken account of, the project might well not have met the department’s normal threshold for allocating its finite funds. …
… Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West, on Friday called on Osborne to justify the use of public cash on a “vanity project”. He said: “At a time of deep public sector cuts, this money could have been spent on countless other projects where the business case has already been proved.” …
East Devon Watch 