How has Grayling got away with piggybacking Crossrail onto LHR surface EXPANSION when it was designed specifically for Londoners on local routes?
Crossrail is a separate project but always included a link into LHR. The owners of Heathrow were to put around £250m into the Crossrail project but then the third runway was cancelled and as a result I believe they refused to put the money forward. Because of this the Crossrail spur was not included in the construction works. I believe this will now go ahead however.
Regarding the surface works, pricing a job of this size costs quite a lot in itself so until a decision had been made I wouldn't expect anyone to commit. Hopefully now we can start narrowing down those figures.