London mayor Sadiq Khan has admitted he was told in July that Cr
ossrail was in 'serious risk' of delay.
The mayor has released a cache of documents relating to Crossrail in an attempt to end the accusations that he misled the public and the market over when he knew about Crossrail's likely delays.
He asserted that the material clearly demonstrates that the mayor and TfL have been fully transparent about what they knew and when.
However his office also conceded that they show that at a meeting with the mayor and senior TfL executives on 26 July, Crossrail briefed that the official opening date for the project, 9 December 2018, was at 'high risk'.
Mayor Khan had previously suggested he was not told umntil the end of August about Crossrail's delay.
In fact as early as January he was told there were 'significant cost and schedule pressures, which continued to be actively managed by Crossrail Limited'.
In February, Crossrail was reported as being behind schedule and in April Crossrail reported that it is very likely to breach its overall funding envelope, including having used all of the £600m contingency funding available to it from TfL.
Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee, Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, said: 'It is now clear that the Mayor was told on July 26 that Crossrail’s opening date was at “high risk”.
'TfL have released a lot of news today but not the information we asked for. We summonsed TfL’s weekly updates to the Mayor and these have been published, apart from a suspicious missing period in July-August.'
Assembly members also criticised the rescue package for Crossrail agree with Government.
Chairman of the London Assembly Budget & Performance Committee, Gareth Bacon AM, said: 'This financing package reveals the extent of the shambles that the Crossrail project has become. The GLA, Crossrail and TfL are stitching together what amounts to a rescue package using figures that will stagger most Londoners. The GLA alone is making a further £100m cash contribution which is money that cannot now be spent elsewhere.
'While Crossrail will one day prove a huge boon to the capital’s economy it is currently a drag and an embarrassment. We’re pleased this project has been kept afloat but deplore the failings that made such drastic remedial action necessary in the first place.'
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