Q31 Mr Williams: May I harp back a bit-and you will gather there is a degree of prejudice in my questioning-on the first hearings on the Dome- and I make it clear as someone who knows the site very well indeed-it was ludicrous to build a mass audience project on a site that you could not get on to-absolutely ludicrous. But taking the policy decision as said-and I know you cannot comment on that-to us it does look as if having built a Dome that no one wanted we are now refusing to demolish it because still no one wants it. The opportunity costs, as I said to the Chairman, and he said to Mr Trickett, are relevant here, are they not? It is not as if leaving the Dome there is not costing us anything, is it? There is a loss to the taxpayer in money that would otherwise be available for alternative uses in order to sustain the Dome until at least 2018; that is a fact, is it not?
Dame Mavis McDonald: Yes, there is a current opportunity cost.
Q32 Mr Williams: That is right. So how big a site is the Dome itself?
Mr Walker: In the Report we talk about the "Green Land", which is 48 acres, and the Dome sits in the middle of that and the cleared space within the Dome is something in order of 20 acres.
Q33 Mr Williams: So is it just the 20 acres that is not available or the 48 acres that is not available to developers?
Mr Walker: By retaining the Dome the surrounding land is very much associated with the Dome, so if you keep the Dome it is 48 acres.
Q34 Mr Williams: So we have 48 acres. Taking the value of the rest of the site, what is the value per acre on the Peninsula site?
Mr Walker: Following on from my last answer, it is around about the £170 million for the 170 acres.
Q35 Mr Williams: Sorry?
Mr Walker: Following on from my last answer, I said the 170 acres, the current value, the current book value that we have is something in the order of £170 million.
Mr Williams: £170 million for how many acres?
Jon Trickett: £1 million an acre.
Q36 Mr Williams: £1 million an acre. So we are keeping a Dome on a site which we could have sold for £48 million and to keep it there we are using a large part of the share of our share profits from the remainder of the site; is that not actually correct?
Dame Mavis McDonald: I think that might have been factually correct at some stage but the other thing I ought to say, which I think the Report mentions, is that since the Dome has been there and a decision was taken to make it permanent, the London Borough of Greenwich has made it clear that they view it as an iconic building, which gives recognition to the Peninsula, and that they would have wanted to have kept it and if there had been any suggestion of taking it down they would have sought to have had it listed. So other factors have come into play.
Q37 Mr Williams: I am just assessing the value because to people living there it might be anything but iconic; to them it could be an unexploded bomb due to go off in 2018 because they do not know what is going to be put alongside them, when after 2018 that site becomes available for alternative use other than as a Dome, under the policy being adopted. So it could actually be a deterrent, the fact it is there.
Dame Mavis McDonald: At that point obviously Greenwich would have to consult locally if there was any suggestion of taking down the Dome and using it in some other way.
Q38 Mr Williams: Is there any way in which you can describe the situation that I have just outlined as anything but cross-subsidy? The Dome's sustenance is being cross-subsidised by the rest of the site. Is there any way you can prove to me that that is not the case?
Dame Mavis McDonald: If I go back to your premise about the return of the receipts, we accept that there is a current opportunity cost but we view that as a decision that was taken that was a given for us. Within the deal we currently have we do not view there being any subsidy from the taxpayer to the partnership to make the partnership work on a return profit.
Q39 Mr Williams: You are missing the point. It is costing the taxpayer the use of the money that it otherwise would have in order to keep the Dome there until 2018, and it is depriving the taxpayer of that £48 million for the next 13 years. That is a very, very substantial opportunity cost, is it not?
Dame Mavis McDonald: I think Ministers would say that the deal we have, which envisages bringing something over £550 million worth back over the period of the partnership to the public sector, is very good value for money.
Q40 MrWilliams: Yes, but it would have been better value for money if you did not have to use money that otherwise would be available to the Chancellor or to the public organisations involved to keep the wretched Dome open, because as it says in the Report at paragraph 1.24, "Few developers had any real idea of what to do with the Dome itself." The Dome was not an asset, it is not an asset; the Dome was a liability, it remains a liability and will continue a liability.
Dame Mavis McDonald: But within the current deal we have a company that does have the vision and the knowledge and the experience of what to do with the Dome and that they brought to the table as part of the package. So we do view that there is a viable use there that will add to the value of the Peninsula as a whole.