Bond Street may miss opening date, says Crossrail chief

摘要

Crossrail's central section will open with or without Bond Street station, the £18.6bn scheme's chief executive has said. Mark Wild (pictured right) told Building that the station's inclusion in the opening depended on how quickly the rest of the key central London route could get up and running. If Bond Street is not ready, services will begin without it. The opening of the Elizabeth line has been pencilled in for the first half of next year, and Wild said the project was on course to meet a deadline of 30 June - at the latest. Other stations, including Canary Wharf and Whitechapel, are yet to be completed but Bond Street will certainly be the last to finish. Wild said: "I'm confident the rest of the stations, including Canary Wharf and Whitechapel, they'll get there [...] but we couldn't delay the whole railway just because of Bond Street. So, it depends on when the railway opens. If the railway opens around the time that Bond Street is available, then it will be in it." He added that Bond Street's woes dated back to the initial tunnelling and said it had been plagued by design co-ordination problems in the early years of the project. The original station contractor, Costain-Skanska (CSJV), was replaced by Engie last summer but Wild said the joint venture was not solely to blame for the repeated delays.