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The Guardian said:Three unusable water cannon bought by Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London have been sold for scrap, at a net loss of more than £300,000.
Johnson bought the crowd-control vehicles from the German police in 2014, in anticipation of social unrest, without checking whether they could be used on London's streets. In one of his most humiliating episodes as mayor the then home secretary Theresa May banned them from use anywhere in England and Wales. It left the capital's taxpayers with three expensive white elephants.
The current mayor, Sadiq Khan, pledged to claw back as much money as possible on the redundant vehicles by selling them. But after almost two years the mayor's office admitted defeat in its attempt to find a reputable buyer.
It announced on Monday that it has agreed to sell the vehicles for just £11,025 to Reclamations Ollerton, a scrap metal yard in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
The fee recoups 3.4% of the £322,834.71 spent on the vehicles since 2014.
The Guardian said:Khan said: "For too long, London taxpayers have had to bear the brunt of Boris Johnson's appalling botched water cannon deal. This has been another waste of taxpayers' money by Boris Johnson. Londoners continue to live with his vanity.
"I am pleased we have managed to finally get rid of them and I made an election promise to Londoners that I would claw back as much of this cash as possible, and pump it into helping young people at risk of being affected by crime and giving them better life opportunities."
The Green party joint leader and London assembly member Siân Berry said more money would have been saved if the vehicles had been scrapped sooner.
She said: "This is the final proof that Boris's water cannon stunt was just money down the drain. It's an affront to Londoners that any public money was spent on what is essentially a weapon against the people. It's a shame more of the money couldn't be recouped and spent on young Londoners, but I'm glad that no one will be using the water cannons against any people as it was rightly deemed inhumane."
