Thirty-one fire panels across the Crossrail network are in need of replacing as they do not meet London Underground safety standards, Transport for London (TfL) board papers reveal.

The papers – released ahead of this week’s TfL board meeting – reveal that replacement panels are “being ordered” after it was discovered that the installed systems fail to “meet the standards required of the railway”.

The panels are believed to be spread throughout the tunnels, portals and at stations along the line.

Issues with the fire systems are also holding up hand over at the Mile End shaft, it has been revealed.

“Following on from handing over Victoria Dock portal and Pudding Mill Lane portal to the IM [infrastructure manager], some issues remain with Mile End shaft which was due to be the next shaft to be handed over,” the papers state.

“One cause of this is a fire alarm controller which needs to be upgraded to meet the standards required for the railway.

“Replacements are being ordered but will then need to be installed and tested. There are 31 instances of these fire panels across the rest of the stations, shafts and portals on Crossrail.”

While the location of the 31 inadequate panels has not been officially revealed, New Civil Engineer understands that remediation works are needed at four central London stations including Woolwich and Canary Wharf.

A Crossrail spokesperson said: ''The original fire panels were specified some years ago, but the decision has been taken to upgrade to a more modern product that better meets the very high level of performance standards required.''

The board papers also reveal that the Crossrail Ltd’s senior management team still believes that the line will open between October 2020 and March 2021.

It states, at a meeting on 10 October “the Board confirmed that they still expect to open the central section of the route within the planned six month window between October 2020 and March 2021, however, there remains an element of risk in the project and interventions are in place to improve productivity.”

Risks to the project delivery were identified in a separate update by TfL investment delivery planning director David Hughes and include “completion of Bond Street station, Siemens and Bombardier software plateau, scarce resources in the Tier 1 and Tier 2 supply chain, issues with handover of shafts and portals, and implementing the end to end commissioning plan for staged completion”.

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