Crossrail’s programme director Andy Mitchell (pictured) is to leave Europe’s largest infrastructure project and become chief executive of the Thames Tideway Tunnel scheme.

“I will have mixed emotions leaving Crossrail as this is a fantastic project of which I am hugely proud,” he said. “The level of professionalism on the job is enormous.”

He added: “At the end of the day I am just one of 10,000 working on Crossrail and I am sure that the project will continue to go from strength to strength.” Mr Mitchell would not say when he will leave the project or who his successor will be.

Mr Mitchell has helped lead the £14.8Bn Crossrail scheme to just past the half way point. Tunnelling for the new railway will be largely complete by the end of this year when the focus will move more towards fit out and testing.

Three of eight tunnel boring machines commissioned to create new routes for Crossrail beneath central London have now completed their work. On Saturday a machine named Ada retired from service having reached Farringdon, and on Monday machine Sophia broke through into a portal at North Woolwich.

The project reached its half way point on 16 January in terms of overall construction activity. A total of 30km out of 42km of new tunnel drives has been completed. Crossrail will serve 38 stations, including nine new ones, and increase London’s rail network capacity by 10%. The railway is to open in 2018.

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