The board of Crossrail Ltd, the company building the new
Elizabeth line railway that will eventually run east to west through central
London, said last week it does not expect the line to be fully open until the
first half of 2022 – more than three years after its original opening date –
and said it will need an additional £450 million to complete the project.
Crossrail was originally due to be completed in December
2018, but that date has been pushed back several times due to operational challenges,
according to the company. The project’s costs have also spiralled, with a £1.4
billion financing package agreed with Transport for London and the Greater
London Authority in 2018. Crossrail Ltd now says the cost could rise to £1.1
billion above that agreement, £450 million more than the updated estimate
announced in November last year.
Sections of the Elizabeth line are already operational, with
trains running between Liverpool Street and Shenfield in the east, as well as
between Paddington and Reading and Heathrow airport in the west. However,
Crossrail’s board said in July that the project to complete the central section
connecting Paddington and Abbey Wood has been impacted by operational
challenges caused by the need to ensure workers are socially distanced during
the Covid-19 pandemic. It claims it can now only have around 2,000 people on
its sites – less than half of its normal workforce.
The project had already been facing time constraints before
the pandemic hit, with the company saying the “completion and handover of all
the stations in the central section is a monumental task”.
Crossrail chief executive Mark Wild said operational testing
known as Trial Running would begin “at the earliest opportunity” in 2021.
The Crossrail project has received much criticism from both
the local government in London and UK MPs, both of which have called for more
accountability and transparency on the timeline and budget of construction.
Meanwhile, transport secretary Grant Shapps has announced
the Department for Transport will launch the Acceleration Unit, a team of
specialists tasked with tackling delays to infrastructure projects.