Mark Wild tells 好色先生TV the rest of the stations will be ready to open

Crossrail鈥檚 central section will open with or without Bond Street, the 拢18.6bn scheme鈥檚 chief executive has said.

Mark Wild told 好色先生TV that the station鈥檚 inclusion in the opening depended on how quickly the rest of the key central London route could get up and running.

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Oversite development at Bond Street station is pushing ahead as well

The opening of the Elizabeth line has been pencilled in for the first half of next year, which Wild said it was on course to meet.

Other stations, including Canary Wharf and Whitechapel, are still to be completed but Bond Street will be the last to finish.

Wild said: 鈥淚鈥檓 confident the rest of the stations, including Canary Wharf and Whitechapel, they鈥檒l get there [鈥 but we couldn鈥檛 delay the whole railway just because of Bond Street.

> Mark Wild full interview: why Crossrail will be worth the wait

鈥淪o, 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.鈥�

He added Bond Street鈥檚 woes dated back to the tunnelling and said it had been plagued by design coordination problems in the early years of the project.

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 delays.

He said: 鈥淲e鈥檝e turned a big corner on Bond Street really in recent years. Even with CSJV in charge of the project, we鈥檇 really turned the corner.

鈥淭hey鈥檝e been carrying this lateness, one year to 18 months, [since] the very beginning of the job, so I feel a bit sorry for them for that.鈥�

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