Crossrail still needs £150m more to finish off key central section

Transport for London is expecting it to cost £460m to finish off the central section of Crossrail – but the project is still facing a £150m shortfall, documents have revealed.

The papers, published ahead of next week’s TfL programmes and investment committee meeting, say the central section of the project is expected to cost a total of £15.94bn, with £15.48bn already having been spent.

Around £460m is still needed to finish the job off by June this year, the line’s revised opening time, but the project has an authorised budget of £15.79bn – meaning it is missing £150m.

Crossrail’s position has been that it needed an up to £1.1bn to complete the project ever since August 2020 but was handed £825m by government in the latest bailout.

This means the railway’s position on how much cash it needed has not changed in the intervening years with the total needed falling within its £1.5bn request.

The shortfall was also flagged by the Public Accounts Committee in a report published last June with project representative Jacobs also raising the funding issue.

The papers also reaffirmed the line, which was originally due to open in December 2018, would be opening without Bond Street. They added that the railway was working “to get the earliest opening date for this station”.

The costs of the central section do not include work being done on the line either side of this stretch with jobs east of Liverpool Street and west of Paddington bringing the total budget up to £18.6bn.