I realise from the ferocity of the comments on my post about the Garden Bridge what strong feelings it arouses.

I would merely comment:-

1.  As attentive readers of my blog will have read, the idea of a bridge between Temple and the South Bank dates back to the 1940s when it first appeared as an aspiration in the 1943 County of London plan.

2.  Much of the thrust of the book published by Mark Fisher and Richard Rogers on The New London in 1992 relates to the opportunities provided by the deindustrialisation of the Thames and the benefits of treating it as a central artery to be enjoyed and appreciated instead of us just turning our backs on it.

3.  The exhibition organised by Peter Murray at the Royal Academy in 1996 floated the idea of Living Bridges, which could be inhabited rather than treated as a way of getting from A to B.

4.  The area between Blackfriars and Charing Cross can feel slightly dead.   Someone told me that Temple underground station is the least used on the network, which I find hard to believe, but is suggestive that Aldwych, Somerset House and Temple could benefit from more convenient access.

5.   As I understand it, the bulk of the funding is private apart from an initial investment of £30 million from the Treasury.   So, it costs the public purse £30 million which is not disproportionate.

All of this is a way of saying that it represents more than the childhood dream of Joanna Lumley.

Tonight I went to a fundraising dinner in support of the Garden Bridge.   I was, and remain, in support of it, in spite of the protesters picketing outside.   Joanna Lumley spoke of her original dream of an English garden in the hills of Malaysia.   Thomas Heatherwick spoke of the importance of joining the two sides of the river by having somewhere to linger as one crosses it.   I know there are lots of people who oppose it, who think that it is a folly.   But there is something attractively mad about planting an English garden in the middle of the Thames.