Crossrail CEO admits complexity 'off the scale'

Crossrail trains are being tested in Abbey Wood

The CEO of Crossrail has admitted the project's "off the scale complexity" is one of the reasons it has been beset by delays and ballooning costs.

Mark Wild also told the London Assembly a fixation on a December 2018 launch "distorted everything" and integrating 37 different contracts was challenging.

Although a full timetable will not run until May 2023, the Abbey Wood to Paddington section should open in 2022.

The Elizabeth line will connect Reading and Essex via central London.

The project had an original budget of £14.8bn in 2010. The government increased the project's budget to £18.8bn in December 2020.

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Mr Wild told the London Assembly's transport committee the project was "the most complex engineering effort of this century in this country".

He said: "Crossrail was too complicated. It could have been made much simpler."

Heidi Alexander (dep mayor for transport), Mark Wild (CEO, Crossrail) and Andy Byford (TfL commissioner) appeared at City Hall

Transport for London (TfL) commissioner Andy Byford reiterated his promise to open the Abbey Wood to Paddington section in the first half of 2022.

He said: "If someone had offered me this position in mid-November 2021, I would have absolutely taken where we are now.

"It absolutely will not slip... the one caveat being that I would rather wait and spend a little bit more time on getting it right out of the box than be in a rush to open and it be unreliable."