2.16 Following from the lessons learned from the first sale process, English Partnerships and the Department decided to limit the criteria used to evaluate bids to three equally weighted, simplified objectives: a worthwhile and sustainable use for the Dome; value for money; and deliverability of the deal. When Ministers announced the deal with Meridian Delta Limited and Anschutz in May 2002, the list of criteria also explicitly included regeneration benefits, reflecting the inclusion of the additional land, consistency with the first competition and the fact that regeneration benefits would always form part of the evaluation through inclusion in the other criteria.
2.17 Given that the Wellcome Trust did not submit a bid, and the issues outlined above that they had identified with the Tops Estates' bid, the Department and English Partnerships considered that they had only one compliant and clearly deliverable bid on the table. Though further work from English Partnerships and their advisers may have elicited more proposals from the market, they believed that they had thoroughly tested the appetite of the major players for deliverable proposals centred on the Dome. This view was supported by their property and legal advisers who stated that the transaction with Meridian Delta Limited and the Anschutz Entertainment Group, involving a clearly defined grouping of substantial and well known companies in their field, would enhance the prospects of deliverability of the deal.