Commenting on the details emerging about the irregular process that approved the Garden Bridge contract - including secret meetings by the Mayor in San Francisco to raise funds for the project before it had been put out for tender - Caroline Pidgeon told the Architects' Journal:
"It is staggering that the mayor of London, who is also the chair of TfL, considered it acceptable to fly at taxpayers’ expense all the way across to San Francisco to seemingly drum up support for Thomas Heatherwick’s proposal for a Garden Bridge when TfL had not even published their invitation to tender.
"It is only through the painstaking process of a stream of FOI requests that this information has now come to light and confirmed once again the long standing suspicion held by many that the procurement process was rigged from the very start. Instead of repeatedly dodging questions asked by London Assembly members, the mayor must now publish in full the exact details of his meetings he held during this trip. It is time this cover-up ended."
The journal also points out Caroline's role in using Freedom of Information requests to uncover details of the San Francisco trip.