Crossrail Overrun By £500M

[whole diary]

[CJB666]

Crossrail needs £500m bailout by taxpayer, Chris Grayling to tell MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) Capital’s new train line hit by huge cost overruns

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/crossrail-needs-500m-bailout-by-taxpayer-chris-grayling-to-tell-mps-lv77md5vp

And most western stations are still building sites.

[simonw]

Why does the taxpayer have to pay an extra £500M for Crossrail when no other part of the country receives this kind of transport funding?

Surely London Council Tax Payers should have to contribute a Transport Levy to fund this shortfall?

[ChrisB]

Totally agree.
Also, this is in part, because the Mayor has a 'frozen fares' policy for his term of office.

[didcotdean]

TfL^» (Transport for London - about) have in the past indicated that Crossrail will bring into them an additional £3Bn in revenue over a five year period, and by 2020 be yielding an operational surplus of £311M pa.

Somehow this doesn't make me sympathetic towards their case for more money.

[ChrisB]

indeed....

[JayMac]

It was all industry back slapping through 2016 and 2017. What say these commentators and Crossrail directors now?

https://www.globalgovernmentforum.com/mathew-duncan-finance-director-crossrail-1-uk-exclusive-interview/

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/feature/crossrail-time-and-budget-how-get-major-infrastructure-project-right

https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/why-crossrail-is-a-triumph-for-risk-management/1413499.article

[ray951]

TfL^» (Transport for London - about) have in the past indicated that Crossrail will bring into them an additional £3Bn in revenue over a five year period, and by 2020 be yielding an operational surplus of £311M pa.

Somehow this doesn't make me sympathetic towards their case for more money.

I would be interested to know whether the £3Bn is new money i.e. passengers making journeys that they previously couldn't or is this money that has been taken from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and Greater Anglia on account of Tfl now running these services or a combination of both.

It is interesting to note that the rollout of Crossrail to Reading will result in either greater subsidies required for GWR or a reduction in services in other parts of GWR given that the Thames Valley services are probably the most profitable part of GWR and these services will now be run by Tfl.

[didcotdean]

There is a lot dependent on increased passengers.

There has also been a dip in usage of London Underground since those figures were published. Only 2% but that can make a lot of difference; it has delayed or cancelled some other planned improvement work.

TfL^» (Transport for London - about) itself only contributed £1.9bn to the overall £14.8bn and much of that was borrowed from the European Investment Bank.

[TaplowGreen]

Has there ever been a major rail project which has finished on time and on budget? 

[DidcotPunter]

Reading station rebuild?

[IndustryInsider]

Birmingham New Street did I think, as did the Cotswold Line Redoubling Project and Ordsall Chord project in Manchester and the Waterloo rebuild.  I say 'I think' as finding detailed final accounts is often rather tricky and laborious as I guess any cost overruns can be hidden away to a certain degree, and also the scope of such large projects is often changed during the construction phase making original budgets inaccurate.

Not great that such an overrun has occurred but worth pointing out that £500m, whilst a lot of money, only represents an overspend of just over 3% of the project budget.

[NickB]

Quite frankly I’d be happy if Crossrail overran by £100 billion, just so long as I never have to travel on the shower of self ingratiating s*** that is GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) anymore. Money well spent.

[Adelante_CCT]

Not great that such an overrun has occurred but worth pointing out that £500k, whilst a lot of money, only represents an overspend of just over 3% of the project budget.

Actually its not even that bad, £500k is only 0.003% 

[stuving]

Not great that such an overrun has occurred but worth pointing out that £500k, whilst a lot of money, only represents an overspend of just over 3% of the project budget.

Actually its not even that bad, £500k is only 0.003% 

Oh, really?

[simonw]

Very few major projects finish on time or on budget, and that is not a major issue provided that the original plan and budget are well made, flexible and the alterations are accepted as value for money. However, when a project is badly planned, poorly managed and budgeted we get disasters like

• Rebuilding the Avonmouth M5 road bridge
• New Berlin Airport
• Great Western Electrification

So far, I haven't not heard of Crossrail being a disaster, but the budget of $14B means, to me, not one penny extra should be given regardless of the issues. If there is a shortfall, then the citizens of Essex, London and Berksire should stump up, and TFL^▸ (Transport for London) should offer shares that provide discounted unlimited on TfL^» (Transport for London - about) for the shareholders liftime.