The botched opening of Crossrail has been blamed on the coalition government, as local Tory pressure on the Mayor is played down.

Greater London Assembly candidate and Conservative councillor Charlie Davis asked Greenwich Council to back his call to pressure the Mayor for a new opening date at a meeting on June 26.

The huge infrastructure project, linking Abbey Wood in the east through central London and out to Reading, was initially set to open in December 2018.

A series of pushbacks has seen the budget rocket and no official opening date has yet been revealed.

Cllr Davis said: “It’s fair to say Crossrail has not gone to plan for Sadiq Khan. With no new opening date in sight and construction work continuing. businesses are not just not feeling the boost, but they are being negatively impacted.

“The council must work with businesses to make sure they feel the economic benefit of Crossrail. In the most extreme cases, the council should look to offer business rate relief for more imagining solutions.

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“I call on the leader to request the mayor to announce a new opening date as soon as possible”.

Businesses recently spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting service about the impact Crossrail’s delays have had, admitting they feel “crucified”.

A Labour amendment watered down the opposition calls and praised Sadiq Khan for negotiating extra cash from the government to keep the project running.

Leader Danny Thorpe told the chamber: “All of us are disappointed that Crossrail is delayed and what we are hopeful for is that the whole thing will come together.

“Since the last meeting we have been represented at a number of high level forums conveyed by the mayor. I have to draw a distinction with trying to imply that TfL and Sadiq are responsible.

“With Crossrail we have to go back to the beginning. in the 2010 spending review the coalition cut Crossrail’s budget.

“As we all know cuts have consequences, if the last year teaches us anything, its that you can’t cut corners when building a new railway.

“Our mayor has done the right thing by London. In an ideal world the government would have put their hands in their pockets – the loan is welcome but they could have gone further.”

The motion recognised that with every week Crossrail is delayed, taxpayers are paying £30m.

The leader said that testing of the new trains has  now moved into “delivery critical” phase.

The Conservatives chose to abstain from voting on the Labour group amendment praising the mayor.

Cllr Davis said: “Everyone involved in this project should hang their heads in shame – we will be abstaining from the Labour amendment, but there is a lot that can be done going forward by all of us.”