How Crossrail delays risk holding up other vital infrastructure

Besides the short-term detriment the delay has caused, a bigger danger is that future projects will be scuppered by scepticism, writes Simon Calder

Construction on an Elizabeth line expansion at Moorgate station, in the City, on 8 November 2019 (Getty)

In the European league table of vast and really bungled infrastructure projects in a capital city, London lags way behind Amsterdam and Berlin.

To build an underground railway in what is basically a large marsh, you would probably call in the Dutch. But perhaps not the same bunch of engineers who were put to work on the North-South Metro line at the tail end of the 20th century.

The trains finally started rumbling beneath Amsterdam last year, 11 years late and after more than twice the original budget had been spent – working out at £3,000 per citizen.