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Around £20m in revenue could be lost due to Crossrail opening delay

Around £20m of revenue could be lost due to delays in opening Crossrail, leaders in transport said.

At a London Assembly meeting on Thursday, transport bosses claimed £20m in revenue for TfL could be lost in the upcoming financial year due to the pushback of opening the system— however they noted it was still too early to confirm the full impact of the delay.

Last week it was announced that Crossrail would be delayed by at least nine months as leaders of the project noted that “further time is required” for testing, frustrating rail users and politicians across the UK.  

In July it was revealed that Crossrail had gone £600m over budget.

Yesterday, transport commissioner Mike Brown said: “Any additional costs that may emerge, we will be making provisions within our own plans. It’s early days for the arrangement of additional costs.”

Brown noted that they met with the Treasury and DfT yesterday to discuss going forward with Crossrail.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he only found out about the delay just two days before it was made public— noting he was “extremely disappointed, frustrated, and angry” by the delay.

Chairman Sir Terry Morgan said he was “so disappointed” in the delay, adding it is “not easy to find yourself in a position like this.”

“We were determined to deliver on time but as we negotiated one risk others started to materialise,” he added. “The complexity of testing the new systems drew us to a conclusion that we couldn’t generate a safe railway in December.”

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Image credit: Dominic Lipinski PA Images