SADIQ Khan has been blasted for spending £420,000 on a festival celebrating London's "amazing outdoors".

The London Mayor signed off huge chunks of cash on a ten-day National Park City Festival in July, which included 300 events for Londoners.

It included an audio installation in Epping Forest, paddle-boarding sessions and two parties powered by pedal bikes.

The latest figures show the Greater London Authority spent £419,250 on the week-long outdoor party, which aims to encourage Londoners to be greener and more eco-friendly.

When private money is included, the total spend jumps to more than £700,000.

The budget includes staff, contractor costs, health and safety and other admin costs.

It comes after the Mayor was criticised for holding a £300,000 five-week outdoor beach party for Londoners for the second year running.

James Roberts, Political Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, told The Sun:"Sadiq has once again been splashing taxpayers' cash on pointless gimmicks, like pedal-powered music performances and over-priced paddling pools.

"After the failure of his bonkers urban beach party last year, Khan has doubled down and coughed up yet more city hall cash for his pet projects, despite Londoners begging him to focus on the big issues like knife crime and bumper council tax bills.

"Being Mayor of London is not a walk in the park, so Sadiq needs to get serious and refocus his efforts on tackling the real issues facing the capital."

Mr Khan has been in the job since 2016 and is set to run for re-election in London next spring.

He will go head to head with MP and ex-Tory Rory Stewart, and the Conservative candidate, Shaun Bailey.

But the Mayor's time in office has been marred by critics saying he's not doing enough to get a grip on spiralling knife crime in the capital.

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: "Investing in green spaces is part of the Mayor’s wider work to address climate change and clean-up London’s filthy air and he has helped London to be recognised as the world’s first National Park City by delivering more than 175,000 new trees and improving 200 green spaces.

"City Hall marked London’s National Park City status with a 10-day festival of over 300 free events attended and enjoyed by 90,000 Londoners."



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