London mayor supports Garden Bridge but requests changes to the plans

In a recent press release, Khan expressed how the Garden Bridge has the potential to rival New York's High Line but must be made easily accessible and be a "genuinely public and open space for all Londoners, rather than a closed and private space".

The London mayor has requested that the Garden Bridge Trust (GBT) make a number of changes to the current proposals and he has criticised the previous City Hall's administration of the project.

Current plans enable the Bridge to be closed for 12 full days a year for private fundraising events. Khan would like this to be reduced to 10 days a year and fewer hours each day to allow members of the public to still use the bridge in the morning and evenings of event days.

The GBT "share the mayor's desire to have the bridge open to everyone for as long as possible" but need to balance the need between raising the necessary private funds with public access. The plan is to split the days of closure between private hire and private access to donors who have contributed £5m or more; this includes companies such as Sky and the Sainsbury family's Monument Trust.

Khan would also like children from local schools to be involved in the planting and maintenance of the gardens, and for the GBT to create relationships with all of London's parks. The GBT agrees with the mayor and is already making progress with local students and looking into building further relationships.

The mayor of London also published the GBT's business plan for the project to guarantee transparency for the public. This plan included information on funding of the construction of the Garden Bridge as well as operational maintenance costs. GBT is still working on raising the last £32m of funding.

Planning expert Victoria Lindsay of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "The Garden Bridge proposals linking Temple and the Southbank have been met with some controversy over whether or not they should go ahead and how much they will cost."

"However, Sadiq Khan, speaking at his first mayor's Question Time, said that £37.7m of the £60m pledged by Transport for London and the government had already been spent on the Garden Bridge and cancelling the project would cost the taxpayer twice as much as to complete the estimated £175m project costs," Lindsay said.

"It is notable that the newly elected mayor, Khan, is focussing on transparency (claiming his predecessor's administration was not sufficiently transparent) and has published the previously undisclosed full business plan for the project. Khan is seeking to be seen to do things differently from Boris Johnson from the start," she said.