Dome site bill could rise by £60m

Targets to build 4,250 homes on the site may not be met, the report says

Delays in developing the Millennium Dome site could leave taxpayers up to £60m worse off, according to a report.

Plans to sell 170 acres of redeveloped land around the venue in Greenwich, south-west London, to build 4,250 homes would bring in more than £216m.

But a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) warned delays could see returns fall by up to £60m.

English Partnerships, the government agency carrying out the works, welcomed the report's "robust assessment".

'Sheer complexity'

The body's chief executive, John Walker, said: "We recognise that the pace of residential construction has slipped from our early forecasts, but this has been due to the sheer complexity of the task and a huge amount has been achieved in the meantime."

As a consequence of these delays, taxpayers' likely return from the redevelopment has fallen significantly National Audit Office

It is now feared that the reduced price of the land's sale will mean taxpayers having to pay a greater part of the £225m spent on decontaminating the site, providing security and other costs, the NAO report found.

It is also still not clear how much the taxpayer will recoup from the £760m spent on the Dome itself, which has become the most successful entertainment venue in the world since opening as the O2 arena last year.

Although praising the venue's new incarnation, researchers said the wider picture has been "less successful" and the goal of building 4,250 homes by 2016 may not be met.

"It will be difficult for the housing programme to recover the lost ground to meet original targets because the rate of building required to do so is very demanding," the report reads.

"As a consequence of these delays, taxpayers' likely return from the redevelopment has fallen significantly."