Recession shatters plans for £5m glass Heatherwick bridge

Thomas Heatherwick’s design for a bridge made entirely from glass in Kings Cross has been dropped by the developer because it is too expensive.

The £5 million footbridge was planned to provide access across Regent’s Canal into Granary Square at Goods Way.

But a decade after Heatherwick Studio was commissioned by Argent, the bridge has been dropped.

Argent director Robert Evans said it was conceived in a boom and was now too expensive. But he said a footbridge was still planned for the spot - but not until after 2015.

Evans told the Camden New Journal: “In the heady years of 2006 to 2008 things seemed to be very different in terms of funding and before the full cost of the Heatherwick Bridge became known.

“It became prohibitive as it was considerably more than £5 million, which is almost as much as Granary Square itself.”

An Argent spokeswoman said the developer “hoped” to commission the designer, currently the subject of an exhibition at the V&A, to create the final structure.

A statement from Heatherwick Studio said: “The economic crisis has made a project like this that bit harder to make happen. We have a fantastic relationship with Argent and they are committed to working on something with us whether or not it is a glass bridge.”

The bridge, whose 1,334 sheets of 12mm thick glass sheets would have been held together by compression alone, would not have required any non-glass fixtures and would have been lit from within.

It won the Bombay Sapphire Award 2002. Heatherwick has now been appointed by the drinks firm to design a distillery and visitor centre in Hampshire.