Pessimists predict that the problem will lead to global computer meltdown as systems programmed with two-digit dates fail to recognise the year 2000.

"Small firms must wake up to the bug problem": Dr Peter Morris of The Mandelbrot Set and Gwynneth Flower of Action 2000's

The bug park, which opens on Tuesday, brings together 15 businesses and observes how they tackle the bug.

Action 2000, the official millennium bug campaign, is concerned that some businesses are too complacent believing they are "Y2K safe".

"I am concerned about the seeming complacency of the small company community," said Action 2000 managing director Gwynneth Flower.

"They are in many cases suffering a perception gap. They think of it as just the desktop PC," she told BBC Radio's Today programme, adding that companies often do not check their supply chain and embedded systems.

An Action 2000 survey found that at least a third of small to medium-sized businesses have yet to take any remedial action and a third have not taken enough.

"What we're trying to do with the bug park is to look at real businesses, take them through their own experiences, show how they are addressing the bug," said Ms Flower. She is hoping that other firms will see the case studies and take action themselves.

Companies that arrange to have their computer systems checked have been surprised at how many millennium bugs still lurk in their systems.

Companies must 'bare their soul'

Computer firm The Mandelbrot Set, which specialises in checking systems for the millennium bug, said many companies that think they are bug-free are in fact riddled with the problem.

Its technical director, Dr Peter Morris, welcomed the bug park initiative. "It's a good next step. I think having companies bare their souls, warts and all, is a good thing."

But he said it was also the responsibility of software houses to provided bug-free operating systems. "The government programme needs to be done with cold logic to reveal that these programs do have these fundamental flaws in them."