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Paul, the fact is the Garden Bridge project collapsed under the weight of its own internal contradictions, melting like a chocolate teapot.

It would have been neither a useful connecting bridge nor a generous open space; it may have provided fabulous views (we never know, because the Garden Bridge Trust didn't spend a penny of the £46m on verified views from the bridge) but only by blocking the best views of St Paul's from London's most popular sauntering space, and by turning that space into a mosh pit; it may have looked 'green' but would actually have been clad in copper-nickel extracted from mines in the Congo by a company embroiled in environmental and human rights abuses; it might have accommodated 270 smallish trees, but at a cost which Trees for Cities estimate could have planted 12 million trees; it might have looked elegant from a glance at the bird’s-eye CGI, but it was unbalanced (it’s two ‘feet’ were in the middle of the river and next to the north bank) and as a result far too massive (acting as ballast) and clunky; it was supposed to cost £60m but ended up north of £200m – because key costs were not factored in, including the astronomical designer/engineering costs; it was supposed to be funded by private philanthropists, but all of the £46m spent and lost was public money; it was supposed by self-financing once opened, but it fell on this final issue, with Sadiq not willing to underwrite the £3m annual running costs.

But perhaps I’ll save the most egregious contradiction for you, Paul, since you pedal it so often: it was supposed to be a ‘leap of imagination’, but it was nothing of the sort, unless you want to claim that every child who thinks “imagine a bridge with some trees and flowers on it – cor!” a leap of imagination – because from that wildly imaginative beginning Heatherwick failed on every score to come up with an engineering, design or financial solution.