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Remember When The Conservatives Wanted To Demolish The Millennium Dome?.....
Styker
Posts: 50,194 Forum Member
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During and after the year 2000, the Conservative party then in opposition as well as numerous Conservative commentators in the press/media kept on calling for The Millenium Dome now called The 02 to be demolished.
Do you remember that and what do think of that now and did you agree with them at the time?
I was always against that move, I thought the Dome looked brilliant and could easily be converted into what it is now as a major multiple and adapatable leisure site with an arena that could be adapted for many indoor sporting events and concerts. I was also pro the Olympics too while so many others pooh poohed it in advance and then got on board after the brilliant opening ceremony and then the games themselves.
Do you remember that and what do think of that now and did you agree with them at the time?
I was always against that move, I thought the Dome looked brilliant and could easily be converted into what it is now as a major multiple and adapatable leisure site with an arena that could be adapted for many indoor sporting events and concerts. I was also pro the Olympics too while so many others pooh poohed it in advance and then got on board after the brilliant opening ceremony and then the games themselves.
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Having said that, I also felt that once it was there we should simply make the best possible use of it.
It seems as though subsequent governments have attempted to politicise it by claiming that it is either a waste of money or an iconic landmark - depending on who you ask and when.
The only other thing I'd say is that if it DOES ever get demolished it'll probably be under a Tory government rather than a Labour one as they're the ones more likely to succumb to the lure of the almighty £.
How wrong
They could turn it upside down to collect flood water Or use it as a big umbrella!
It is very adapatable.
And a wonderful legacy left by the Conservative party. So glad that under Labour it came in on budget! http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/nov/09/dome.jondennis
There was never anything wrong with the Dome as a building. The problem was the crap exhibition that they (Labour) put inside and then it took a a while to work out what to do with it long term.
In fact the exhibition was fine and most people that went enjoyed it. The problem was the budget for the exhibition massively overestimated how many people would visit (in the end 6.5 million people attended - more than twice as many as the most popular paid attraction in the UK gets (Tower of London)).
I agree with that. I have never been to an event at The 02 but I did walk around inside once and the "roof" looks very flimsy indeed and I wonder why it needed so much money to construct such a flimsy looking "roof" held up by cranes.
Also to those who have been to events at The 02, does it get very cold in there or do they have good heating systems there? Again with the "roof" looking so flimsy, I wouldn't be surprised if it does get very cold in there but then again maybe they have worked round all of this with the individual "units" in there and I hope they have done, they should have too.
It was the Tories that came up with the idea, but the construction didn't really get going until Labour got in I think or have I got that wrong? I do remember Michael Hestletine meeting with a key Labour person at the site around 1995 to ask/ensure that Labour would carry on with the project if they won which I think he and most people in the political world knew that Labour would win. It was probably either John prescott or Mandelson that Hestletine met then and whoever it was, they did agree to keep the project going.
I think the roof must be a lot stronger than it looks. Not only do they do events where people can pay to climb onto the top of the roof with mountaineering equipment, but Pierce Brosnan('s stunt double) fell onto the actual dome from a not-inconsiderable height in The World Is Not Enough, and didn't fall through it.
We went, bits were quite good, the majority of it was either ok or not v good at all. We agreed afterwards that it was a bit underwhelming for all the fuss and cost of the place.
Good points, I hope you're right that the roof is a lot stronger than it looks. It sure looks good in pictures and from the outside, its once you're inside it looks flimsy. I worked in cinema at the time of the release of that Bond film and saw it in advance of its opening and I remember that scene well, It was done before The Dome offically opened too.
Well from a taxpayer money point of view it was and remained that way , it got so few visitors because you could not buy tickets at the venue you could only do it through certain selected travel agency partners, right at the end they changed that but far too little too late for it to make a financial difference , a lot of very bad management decisions along with poor financial management.
Run properly it could have been the venue it is today making money for the tax payer, instead we paid a fortune to build it way above the budget the final cost was £700 million, it then lost loads of money and sold it to AEG for £1.
No it was sold for £1 having cost about £700 million to build then the costs after that
Then it was a failure.:D
Does not matter what it is now, its cost loads and was a flop.
I went there on two occasions, it was ok. In a oh look how nice, wheres the McDonalds sort of way.
With all the money that has been spent on people going to events there though must have indirectly paid that money back and then some loads of times over surely?
We don't own it anymore, we the taxpayer paid £700 million for it to be built, it made a loss as it was badly managed then the government sold it to AEG for £1 so we made a loss, any profits since it became the o2 now belong to its owners.
It sounds like the work of a Tory government. haha.
But the point I made in response to your point is that with all the money spent by people going to events there, they money must have indirectly been paid back already loads of times over.
There are lots of big projects that the Government pay for and then hand them over to the private sector, I don't like it but we either subsidise them or let the private sector deal with them. The Olymoic Stadium is now being rented out to West Ham Football Club, if HS 2 goes ahead, then do you think that will stay in Government hands?
Actually it was Labour who confirmed their support for it when they went into office in 2007 and it was the labour government who sold it for £1
The Tories undersold Royal Mail by at least 6 Billion, and they sold off BA I heard for a £1 too or they sold the planes for that amount. Did the Tories get a good price for the selling off of British Telecom and all the gas/electricity companies? I doubt they did, many of them are subsidised bigtime one way or the other, especially on pensions.
However, the venue generates a lot of money in tax from VAT (20% of every ticket), sales in the bars and from the payroll of staff and performers not to mention driving business to nearby restaurants and hotels.