Crossrail

Crossrail soars £600m over budget, further costs on the way

The Crossrail budget is operating at £600m over budget and extra funding will still be required for the project in the future.

In a written statement to Parliament yesterday, rail minister Jo Johnson said that despite it being “another productive year” for the project, cost pressures have increased, resulting in the DfT and TfL boosting the total budget up to a massive £15.4bn.

He explained: “As reported in the update to Parliament last year, cost pressures have increased across the project. Both the department and TfL remain committed to the successful delivery of this project and have agreed an overall funding envelope for delivery of the project of £15.4bn.

“The anticipated cost of the project was previously estimated at £15.9bn in 2007 and increased to £17.8bn in 2009, before the Coalition Government took steps to bring down the costs following the June 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review.”

Johnson noted that the additional funding is being provided to both Crossrail Ltd and Network Rail. In total, £300m is being made available to Crossrail, with the DfT and TfL contributing £150m each.

An extra £290m will also be paid by Network Rail and the DfT to make improvements to existing rail networks linked to Crossrail.

The rail minister noted that the project was 93% complete and was entering final testing and commissioning stages, adding that over 60% of the project had been funded by Londoners and the capital’s enterprises.

He explained that there have been “a number of engineering and technical challenges” that have already been overcome in order to build the new railway, but there will continue to be challenges until completion of the project at the end of the year.

Reports surfaced in June last year during the annual update of the project that despite Crossrail remaining on budget, cost pressures were still increasing.

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Image credit: rosn123, iStock images