Sadiq Khan was today told to “man up” and take responsibility for getting Hammersmith bridge reopened – as it emerged that the chaos will last for at least nine months.
But the Mayor hit back and said the Government needed to “step up” and fund the repairs – and told his Tory critics to stop telling “lies” about the difficulty of getting the bridge reopened.
The row at Mayor’s Question Time came as Hammersmith and Fulham council said it could take an “estimated nine months” and £46m to stabilise the 133-year-old bridge to enable it to be used again by pedestrians and cyclists.
Full restoration of the bridge, which was closed to vehicles in April last year after cracks were found in the cast-iron structure, would cost £141m – but a “quicker option” would cost £163m, council documents obtained by BBC London reveal.
Erecting a temporary walking and cycling bridge alongside the existing bridge would cost £27.3m, and would also take an estimated nine months, the council said.
At present, pedestrians and cyclists have to divert several miles via the footpath on Barnes rail bridge, with Barnes residents facing lengthy detours to access central London.
Mr Khan today told the monthly Mayor’s Question Time meeting at City Hall that he wanted to get the bridge – which had to be closed to pedestrians and cyclists last month when the summer heatwave caused the cracks to widen – “reopened as soon as possible”.
He said he first asked for help from Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in August last year, and it had taken “a full year for the Government to take the issue seriously” and said it was clear that “ministers wanted to play politics with this issue”.
He said it was only now that the Government was engaging with the problem, and was holding weekly meetings with the council, which owns the bridge, Richmond council, Transport for London and the Port of London Authority.
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He said that, given the cost of the repair bill and the “disastrous” impact of Covid on TfL’s finances, “it’s clear that only the Government has the financial means to fund the necessary full repairs”.
But Tony Arbour, a Tory member of the London Assembly, accused the Mayor of “more fiddling while Barnes burns”.
Mr Arbour said: “You have repeated today that it’s not your fault, that it’s ‘not me, Guv’, that it’s not my responsibility, that it’s the Government’s responsibility.
“Both of your predecessors, both Labour [Ken Livingstone] and Conservative [Boris Johnson] would have seen this as an emergency… and shown proper leadership and done something. If you had acted 17 months ago, which was long before the Covid crisis, there would now have been a proper bridge.”
He said Mr Khan should go ahead with the work now and then present the bill to the Government.
Mr Arbour added: “You have created incompetence and chaos on both sides of the Hammersmith bridge. You have caused an existential crisis to the residents of Barnes and the businesses of Barnes. Will he ‘man up’ and actually take action and do something to help the people on either side of this bridge?”
Mr Khan hit back: “It’s not an issue of ‘manning up’, it’s a question of the Government stepping up and providing the funding so desperately needed by residents and businesses.”