A former transport boss has come under fire over his claims that he told the Mayor of London about the Elizabeth Line delay months before it happened.

These comments came yesterday during a London Assembly transport committee meeting with former Crossrail chairman Terry Morgan.

Bosses from Transport for London (TfL) and the deputy mayor for transport, Heidi Alexander, were also in attendance.

The Elizabeth Line, which will run between Liverpool Street and Shenfield, was supposed to have opened on December 9, 2018, but it was announced in August it would not be opening until autumn 2019. A final date has not been confirmed.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he only found out the project was delayed two days before the announcement from Crossrail in August 2019.

But in December last year this was thrown into question after Mr Morgan told various radio stations he first told Mr Khan about the delay on July 26.

At a meeting with the transport committee on December 21, 2018 Mr Khan insisted this was not the case.

Commenting on this yesterday, Mr Morgan said: “I don’t know what other interpretation there is of the presentation I gave the mayor on July 26, that the delivery of Crossrail was not deliverable full stop.

“We briefed the Mayor as soon as we knew it would be delayed. It’s on a piece of paper, we turned the pages and talked about each page in the presentation pack.

“I do not suffer from loss of memory. Do you really think when a piece of paper says delivery in 2018 is not feasible that it is?”

But Ms Alexander was quick to challenge Mr Morgan’s claims.

She said: “My recall of that meeting is we talked about it being high-risk, but Terry Morgan certainly had not ruled out a December opening time.

“That was the nature of the decision that took place at the end of July and I don’t accept Sir Terry’s summary of that meeting.

“The first I heard of the Autumn 2019 opening date was in August 2018 and it was only at the point we knew the magnitude of the situation.

“The idea that Sir Terry Morgan came into this building and said we have ruled out a December opening date is simply not true.”

Mr Morgan also told the Assembly that earlier this year Transport for London (TfL) deleted part of a briefing he had written for Mr Khan.

This briefing was read out in a TfL board meeting with the mayor, and the supposed deleted part said there was insufficient time to complete the testing of the trains before the opening of the line.

Mr Morgan also claimed TfL told him what to say during this meeting.

He said: “I was given a sheet by TfL about what to say at that board meeting they took out any reference to not being able to deliver the programme in 2018.”

TfL bosses later denied this claim.

The transport committee has now called for further documents from TfL and Heidi Alexander.

The chairman of the transport committee, Caroline Pidgeon, said: “It continues to be a very frustrating process getting to the bottom of the confusion, but Londoners have a right to know.”