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Crossrail鈥檚 boss has revealed that morale is at an all-time low among the thousands of staff working on the job.

Speaking to Transport for London鈥檚 board last week, Wild admitted: 鈥淢orale has gone off the cliff.鈥�

Addressing the board, which is chaired by London mayor Sadiq Khan, Wild said how staff felt about the job had slumped as more and more bad news came out.

He add: 鈥淐rossrail鈥檚 [staff] engagement scores when last measured in 2015 were between 80 and 90, and now it鈥檚 pretty low.鈥�

Media reports about the budget and programme issues hitting Crossrail, which Wild labelled as 鈥渧ery fair鈥�, were part of the reason for the lack of motivation.

The cost of the job has gone up more than 拢2bn to 拢17.6bn.

Wild said: 鈥淭he most important thing is that they [Crossrail staff] are given the platform to succeed. My job is to corral people.

鈥淚t鈥檚 my job to engage them and push them on.鈥�

Wild said there were still between 6,000 and 7,000 people working on Crossrail in London but three times this number in the supply chain elsewhere in the country and internationally.

Wild said while the new Crossrail management was frustrated by the fact 鈥減roductivity is low鈥� progress was being made to improve output.

At the same meeting Wild revealed that there was no chance of Crossrail being completed by the end of this year.

He said: 鈥淚 can鈥檛 see how this job can be delivered in calendar year 2019. I don鈥檛 actually know when it will be delivered after that.鈥�

Wild said while he did not know when Crossrail would be fully operational, the new leadership team was going through the project with a 鈥渇ine-tooth comb鈥�.

Stage three of the programme, which is the section of Crossrail that runs through central London, was due to open last December, while stages four and five which would see trains run all the way from Shenfield in the east to both Heathrow and Reading in the west were due to open by this December.