Bouygues team picked up £21m for Garden Bridge that never happened

The Bouygues team that was supposed to build the Garden Bridge ended up being paid £21m for a crossing which never happened.

A joint venture led by the French contractor and featuring Italian steelwork firm Cimolai was appointed preferred bidder for the doomed project back in May 2015.

But less than two years later the £175m scheme was binned after new London mayor Sadiq Khan decided no more public money be lavished on the project, drawn up by Thomas Heatherwick and championed by Khan’s predecessor Boris Johnson.

Now details of how much the Bouygues team has been paid have been revealed after Transport for London said the total cost of the Garden Bridge project had topped £50m, with the taxpayer on the hook for £43m.

The Bouygues team was paid £18m for the main contract and pre-construction works which included “the selection of tree and landscaping species within Europe and transportation of these for acclimatisation to the UK”.

And it was paid a further £2.1m in termination costs while other fees included the £20,651 it spent to lay a new garden as part of the project’s community involvement programme.

Engineer Arup was paid around £12.3m for its work on the scheme, where it was the lead consultant for engineering as well as cost, commercial and schedule management.

Around £6.4m of this money was paid to Arup directly by TfL prior to the Garden Bridge Trust, the charity responsible for building the bridge, taking over responsibility for the project.

The amount paid to Heatherwick Studio included payments of £2.7m to Arup-Thomas Heatherwick, while TfL also made an additional payment of £52,425 to Heatherwick Studios.

Legal costs totalled £2.3m while planning consultant Adams Henry Consulting was paid nearly £927,000.

Executive salaries at the Garden Bridge Trust topped £1.7m.