3.27 Ministers have consistently instructed English Partnerships and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and its predecessors, to find a sustainable use for the Dome if one exists, and this basic requirement was communicated to bidders in both sale processes. But aside from this edict, there are other practical factors which would in practice make it difficult for English Partnerships and Meridian Delta Ltd to profit immediately from removing the Dome.
3.28 As part of the value for money appraisal conducted in May 2002, English Partnerships and their advisers compared the Meridian Delta Ltd scheme against a range of alternative benchmarks, with the Dome retained or with it removed. The main reason why the "Dome removed" scenarios did not offer higher returns than the Meridian proposal was that the exercise concluded that the 48 acres that would be freed by removing the Dome could not be used to increase the total volume of development on the Peninsula. Based on transport consultants' reports, the advisers concluded that removing the Dome and building office or residential development would run up against the transport capacity limits of the Peninsula in a way that the planned leisure use of the Dome would not. This is because the flow of visitors to and from the Dome would be broadly counter-cyclical with peak office and residential traffic, rather than adding to it.
3.29 Establishing the maximum transport capacity of the Peninsula, and therefore the ceiling that should be placed on the quantum of development, is difficult. The traffic that would be generated by particular types of property development can never be precisely predicted. The timing and effectiveness of future improvements to public transport have to be estimated, and ultimately a subjective view has to be taken of how much traffic congestion is acceptable. For these reasons, advice by transport consultants to English Partnerships on this subject could only suggest a range of capacity figures arising from different scenarios. The Meridian Delta Ltd proposal, with its denser development than English Partnerships' previous plans, has pushed much closer to the limit of acceptability to planning authorities, given current and planned transport provision for the Peninsula. Ultimately the local planning authority, in this case the London Borough of Greenwich, gave consent based on these criteria.
3.30 The current agreement with the Consortium members requires them to retain the Dome until at least 2018. The end of this retention period may coincide with a major enhancement of road transport links in the form of the projected Third Thames Crossing, from Silvertown on the north bank of the Thames to the eastern side of the Peninsula just south of the Dome. Further enhancements to the capacity of the Jubilee Line should also have been delivered by then. Therefore, decisions at the end of the Dome retention period should benefit from greater clarity over the capacity of the Peninsula for further development than is possible now. At that time, contractually18, the decision to retain or replace the Dome would be taken by Meridian Delta Ltd and the Anschutz Group as owners of the Dome and of the commercial businesses housed within it.
3.31 The London Borough of Greenwich, as planning authority for the Peninsula, has consistently expressed its wish to see the Dome preserved, as a catalyst for local regeneration and as an internationally recognised icon for the area. Though Council officials told us that they would have been pragmatic if no future viable use could have been found for the Dome, the Council's stance is that they would explore all protective powers at their disposal, including creating a conservation area, in order to preserve it. Nor did Greenwich officials rule out a future for the Dome beyond the 15 to 20 year life of its fabric skin.
3.32 It is also doubtful that additional land vacated by the Dome would be fully developed within fifteen years in any revised development programme for the Peninsula. Under the current programme (See Figure 19), development will still be continuing on parts of the site after the Dome retention period ends in 2018. Sites on this massive scale are invariably developed in phases over a period of years. English Partnerships and Meridian Delta Ltd expect to be continuing development of the rest of the Peninsula for the next 20 years, without adding extra housing and commercial development on the land currently occupied by the Dome.
3.33 Recognising that the Dome's long term future is subject to uncertainty, English Partnerships have taken steps to protect the taxpayers' position against the possibility that the Dome might be demolished after 2018. Under the agreement with Meridian Delta Ltd they have rights to a 50 per cent share of profits on subsequent redevelopment.
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18 Separately, there will be external considerations, such as the attitude of the planning authorities and the listing status of the Dome at that time.