Caroline Pidgeon has written to the Mayor formally requesting that the planning application for a cruise liner terminal in Greenwich be called in for further investigation.
Particularly, Caroline highlights the risks to air quality from ship engines:
Writing for the Folly For London website on the Garden Bridge project, Caroline Pidgeon takes on the Mayor over the lack of transparency around many aspects of the process:
Yet when it comes to the Garden Bridge this spirit of openness suddenly disappears. Obtaining information about the funding and procurement of the proposed bridge has been a lengthy and torturous process and even now many questions remain unanswered.
London Live filmed the launch of Caroline Pidgeon's campaign to be the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London. Speaking at a nursery school in Islington, Caroline outlined her key priority of making childcare work for working parents:
Welcoming the news that TfL and local business have made £200,000 available for a detailed feasibility study into a bridge from Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf, Caroline Pidgeon told the SE16 website:
“Unlike the Garden Bridge this is a bridge that is desperately needed and where public money should be spent.
Caroline Pidgeon AM, Leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, commenting on the latest teenage stabbing in Islington, said:
"Over the last few years a widespread and generalised mistruth has built up that knife crime is now somehow under control.
“Sadly the harsh reality is that knife crime has increased across London.
As the latest disappointing figures on the Thames cable car showed that fewer people use it in a day than use the Tube in just two minutes, Caroline Pidgeon commented:
"Despite the cable car being long established and fast approaching its third anniversary its passenger numbers remain dismal.
"Quite frankly with so much public money spent on the project the best option would be to turn it into an integral form of public transport.
Caroline Pidgeon AM, Leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, commenting on the Mayor’s refusal at today’s Mayor's Question Time to accept a full and independent audit of the procurement process for the design of the Garden Bridge, said:
"Through extensive investigation led by Architect Journal a number of serious issues have arisen about how Heatherwick Studio was awarded the contract for the design of the proposed bridge. It really is odd in the extreme that companies with far greater expertise in designing bridges were marked down on the criteria of ‘relevant design experience’.
"When a former chairman of the Royal Institute of British Architects procurement reform group states that serious questions remain about the selection process you would expect the Mayor of London to directly address the issues of concern.
Caroline Pidgeon AM, Liberal Democrat London Assembly transport spokesperson, commenting on the admission that the Mayor has agreed to underwrite Garden Bridge maintenance costs, commented:
Caroline Pidgeon AM, Leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, commenting on a report by the insurance company Aviva which has analysed police road traffic collision data between 2009 to 2013 on London’s roads, said:
These figures confirm that cycling around many gyratories and especially roundabouts such as the Elephant and Castle is nothing less than a Tour de Danger for cyclists.
Caroline Pidgeon AM, Leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, commenting on a report published in Architects Journal about lobbying for the Garden Bridge, based on correspondence between the Mayor and Joanna Lumley, said:
We now know that back in May 2012 the Mayor was lobbied to support the Garden Bridge and at this stage was specifically told by Joanna Lumley that the proposed bridge would have segregated cycle tracks.
The fact that a significant change in policy then took place to ban cyclists from using the bridge, apparently at the sole insistence of Joanna Lumley, raises significant questions about how the changing views of one individual can then lead to such an important revision in the architectural design of a major project.
