Crossrail's Success, Grayling's Failing.

Delighted to see this major milestone on the Crossrail Project reached. Proud moment for all those who worked so hard to get to this point.

But it is hard to believe the UK Transport Secretary Chris Grayling could come out with the following statement...

'Brexit would have absolutely no effect on these projects'.

Apparently he has little appreciation for how Civil Engineering projects on this scale are delivered. The three major Crossrail tunnelling contracts were built by a Spanish/British JV, a Spanish/Irish JV and a German/British JV while the fit out of the tunnels was by a French/British JV. If the UK leaves the Single Market it will become not only less attractive for the European firms involved to do business in the UK but also more expensive. Given the UK does not have the capacity deliver the likes of Thames Tideway/HS2/CRL2 etc independently, the extra complexities/costs of EU firms doing business with the UK post-Brexit will bring inevitably will affect project delivery in the UK.

On the design side I had the privilege of working alongside Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Austrian, French, Polish, Danish, Romanian, and German colleagues while involved in Crossrail. Since the Brexit vote the UK has become a less attractive place for EU citizens to work which will accentuate the existing skill shortage in the UK engineering section. In turn this will drive up costs and reduce the sector's ability to draw on international experience thus again affecting project delivery in the UK.

Finally, when you think over 80,000tonnes of tunnel segments for an entire tunnel drive where imported from Ireland you start to appreciate the scale of EU involvement in the supply chain for the Crossrail project. Leaving the single market will slow down this supply chain and drive up costs across the Civil Engineering sector.

I have no doubt had the Crossrail programme extended beyond March 2019, Brexit would be considered one of the main risks to the on time/on budget delivery of the project.

For once it would be nice to see someone from the Tory party speak thoughtfully on the affects of Brexit rather than in soundbites that completely fail to capture the complexities of what they have got the country into.