New Transport Secretary Philip Hammond vows to finish Crossrail

Transport Secretary: Philip Hammond

Crossrail will go ahead, new Transport Secretary Philip Hammond announced today. He ended fears that the Lib-Con government could pull the plug on the landmark £16billion rail scheme for London.

Speaking to the Evening Standard on his first full day in the job, he said: "I think the funding for Crossrail is already established. We are making sure that in delivering the project we absolutely optimise value for money."

Mr Hammond stressed that there had been a very substantial reduction in the original budget for the Canary Wharf station for Crossrail to "value engineering".

He added: "I want to make sure in discussions with the Mayor that right the way through the project all these opportunities for value engineering have been fully explored and that the project is constructed in such a way that where there are opportunities to take costs out that has been done."

He said the project had already started, saying: "It's happening, it's being built, spades are in the ground."

But he did not give any commitment that Crossrail, planned to run from Maidenhead and Heathrow under central London and out to the east of the capital, will be delivered on schedule by 2017.

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