Crossrail station at Bond Street may not be finished for two years, MPs warned

A construction worker drags a trolley down a tunnel at the site for the new Crossrail station in Tottenham Court Road
REUTERS

The Crossrail station at Bond Street may not be finished for two years, while almost £80 million is having to be spent to make the Crossrail station at Canary Wharf safe, MPs have been told.

The latest revelations add to the catalogue of problems to hit the rail line, which is two years late and has seen its budget soar £2.8 billion to £17.6 billion.

An ongoing inquiry by the Commons Public Accounts Committee was updated yesterday by Crossrail’s chief executive Mark Wild about the problems at Bond Street.

It had already been announced that the station would not be open when trains start running, estimated between October 2020 and March 2021.

Mr Wild said even the design of the station, which has soared in cost from £126 million to £412 million, was incomplete and would not be finished until “September or October”. He told the committee: “Bond Street is 18 months to two years away from completion.”

Mr Wild also revealed previously unknown problems with Canary Wharf station, which was built for Crossrail by the landlord of Canary Wharf, the Canary Wharf Group.

He said: “We have spent nearly £80 million changing the equipment at Canary Wharf to make it the equivalent safety standards that are required for London Underground stations.

“It was built in 2015 but we have still not finished the work at Canary Wharf. We won’t finish the work at Canary Wharf until September or October.”

The committee also heard from the former chairman of Crossrail, Sir Terry Morgan, who was forced to resign after a decade last year after losing the support of Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Sir Terry described Bond Street as a “problem child, as was Whitechapel”. His successor Tony Meggs said the decision to abandon the planned December 2018 opening date for Crossrail and set a six-month opening window, with December 2020 the most likely date, had caused the project to lose momentum.

Mr Meggs said: “It was like a balloon that was blown up really tight and then it was punctured. A lot of air went out of the system.”

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