Dome auction 'will miss target'

Some technical items will not be included in the sale

The sale of contents from the Millennium Dome is expected to fall £2m short of the £5m target set by organisers.

More than 1,000 items have been withdrawn from the four-day auction - held to help pay off the Dome's bills - which ends on Friday.

Catalogued items, including hi-tech display screens and TV broadcasting equipment, will no longer be up for grabs.

A statue of a depressed England fan fetched £900

Technical equipment was originally included in the sale in the belief that the Legacy company would pull out of bidding for the Dome after being stripped of preferred bidder status.

But Legacy - which wants to turn the site into a hi-tech business park - has not yet pulled out, so items it originally requested cannot go under the hammer.

The New Millennium Experience Company now expects the sale of 15,000 items to raise between £2.5m and £4m.

Auction favourites

Giant hamster: £3,000

Engraved crystal dish: £1,700

Body Zone heart: £1,500

Body Zone brain: £1,150

English football fan: £900

Body Zone eye: £750

Half a Mini: £450

The first day of the auction, on Tuesday, raised around £200,000, the second day around £800,000.

A total from the auction is expected after the sale on Friday.

Some obscure items have already attracted buyers. A six-foot model hamster fetched £3,000 on Tuesday when it was bought by a man from Kent.

Other items such as the Timekeepers of the Millennium exhibition and the Home Planet zone were excluded from the auction following a request from former NMEC chief executive Pierre-Yves Gerbeau.

The 35-year-old Frenchman is involved in the bidding to keep the Dome open as a visitor attraction.