Dome deal in doubt

The Dome could become an e-commerce business park

The sale of the Millennium Dome hangs in the balance as the bidders stress their deadline remains, with no agreement in place.

The company Legacy has given the government until Friday to let them know if they were going to get preferred bidder status.

Legacy had hoped a meeting of the relevant ministers on Thursday night would clarify their position, but no agreement appears to have been reached.

Following the meeting, a spokesman for Legacy said: "The deadline is still in place and we will clarify the situation on Friday morning".

However, the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott declined to be bound by the deadline.

Government reassurances

He said: "Ministers have had a preliminary discussion but clearly we want to discuss it more fully and then we will make a decision in the next couple of days."

The answer, when it comes, will be made by Mr Prescott in response to a Commons question.

A spokesman for Legacy said: "We want to deliver our project somewhere. We think the Dome is a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.

"But if we're not able to do it there we'd like to do it somewhere else... It was not an aggressive ultimatum, but it was an ultimatum all the same," a Legacy spokesman said.

Legacy wants to turn the Dome into a hi-tech business park, creating 14,000 jobs in three years.

PY Gerbeau: I'll buy it

Ministers could decide to reject the Legacy bid or defer a decision.

Legacy has been given government reassurances that there have been no negotiations with rival bidders since the Dome Europe consortium pulled out in September.

Legacy is headed up by Labour-supporting City property entrepreneur Robert Bourne, and its principal financial backer is Irish property investment company Treasury Holdings.

If they withdraw, the chief executive of the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC), which currently runs the Dome, Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, has offered to buy it himself with commercial backing.

A rival group wants to turn the Dome into a concert venue.

Thursday's meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Cabinet Office Minister Lord Falconer, the minister in charge of the Dome, who has resisted repeated demands for his resignation since last week's damning report on the attraction by the National Audit Office.

'Mismanagement'

Among the criticisms heaped on the Dome by the government's spending watchdog were that it was an inherently risky project, mismanaged and financially weak before it even opened.

The running of the Dome came under further scrutiny on Wednesday when a Commons committee grilled senior officials responsible for the project over how it all went wrong.

The head of the National Audit Office suggested that taxpayers' money was wrongly committed to the Dome without MPs' knowledge.

The NMEC was assured the government would meet the cost of any law suits if the attraction became insolvent, the Public Accounts Committee heard.

Committee chairman David Davis said the promise should have been put before MPs.

But NMEC chairman David James denied that the company had been "cavalier".

Board members had showed extreme concern at the growing financial difficulties of the project, he said.