50. Our principal conclusions and recommendations
are as follows:
(i) The Committee
believes that it must not be too late to redress imbalances in
the distribution of Millennium Commission funds. We recommend
that urgent steps be taken to invite and reassess projects submitted
by ethnic minority communities so that the diversity of the peoples
of the United Kingdom may be appropriately reflected in the Millennium
celebrations (paragraph 5).
(ii) As we travelled around the United Kingdom,
we were struck by the many ways in which investment enabled by
the Millennium Commission is helping to create new landmarks across
the United Kingdom. The Commission has provided a focus and momentum
for many projects founded on local endeavour and initiative. It
has reached places which other public sources and other Lottery
Boards might not have reached. Although we wish that more buildings
of distinctive and distinguished architecture were being erected,
there is considerable potential to leave an impressive and enduring
legacy in the new Millennium. We welcome the efforts made to achieve
long-term financial viability; it is too early to judge whether
positive results will in each case flow from this emphasis on
planning and this is a matter to which we may return in a future
inquiry (paragraph 10).
(iii) The low profile of the Millennium
Awards may in part be attributable to the one doubt which we have
about these schemes, namely their lack of any immediately self-evident
connection to the Millennium (paragraph 11).
(iv) While we welcome the important, indeed
indispensable, contribution by the National Lottery to the Millennium
celebrations, we share the view that the National Lottery alone
should not be the catalyst for those celebrations. We therefore
recommend that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport should,
as a matter of urgency, earmark funding from appropriate organisations
to assist in financing projects from bodies which do not wish
to receive National Lottery funds. Such funding from other sources
would not, of course, be available in cases where National Lottery
grants have already been applied for, whether successfully or
unsuccessfully (paragraph 15).
(v) As a collaborative undertaking between
the Lottery distributing bodies with a combined and simple proposal
form for all applicants, the Festival might, if successful, provide
useful information for the subsequent development of the National
Lottery funding process. We support the emphasis on community
involvement and on legacy from the Festival, which we expect to
see as the characteristics of many successful proposals (paragraph
16).
(vi) We remain to be convinced that, with
the exception of "Our Town Story", the contents of the
Dome are sufficiently linked to the National Programme for the
latter to have the level of input into the Dome originally envisaged
(paragraph 18).
(vii) We welcome the establishment of a
new machinery within Government for oversight of the transport
strategy for the Millennium Dome and the extent of the Ministerial
commitment to ensuring its effective delivery apparent in Glenda
Jackson's evidence to us (paragraph 22).
(viii) We have a number of concerns about
specific aspects of the transport strategy which we consider below
(paragraph 23).
(ix) We urge the Government to bear in mind
that the support and involvement of the local community are likely
to be integral to the success of the transport strategy and to
ensure that the concerns voiced in evidence to this Committee
are listened to and, where appropriate, acted upon as the strategy
evolves. We will wish to question the Company and Ministers on
this matter during our next inquiry (paragraph 23).
(x) In view of the track record of London
Underground in its management of the Jubilee Line Extension project,
the close level of involvement of Ministers and Lord Levene appears
both fully justified and very necessary. There are still worries
that the assurances of London Underground that the opening of
the Extension will take place in the Spring of 1999 are optimistic;
it was, for example, pointed out to us that Westminster station
might not be a stop on the Jubilee Line until some—unspecified—time
after the opening (paragraph 25).
(xi) We recommend that the Government urges
London Underground Limited to consider the long-term benefits
to the tube network and to the area around the Dome of a close
association between the Station and the landmark next to it and
to re-name the Station "Greenwich Dome" accordingly
(paragraph 26).
(xii) We are grateful to Glenda Jackson
for making immediate enquiries about a bus route from the centre
of London to the Dome following the hearing of 16 June and commend
her promptitude in doing so. Nevertheless, we are much less impressed
by the response by London Transport to her enquiries. In her letter
to the Committee of 21 July, Glenda Jackson reported that London
Transport had misgivings about instituting a stopping bus service
from the centre of London to the Dome on the grounds that the
length of the journey might vary according to the time of day
and traffic conditions. We are baffled by this reasoning, if it
can be called such, since these vicissitudes affect every other
London Transport service which London Transport does not discontinue
because of these problems (paragraph 28).
(xiii) London Transport argues that a bus
service from central London to the Dome would face serious competition
from the new Transport 2000 river passenger service. The river
passenger service is intended to be a premium service and not
a routine service. Furthermore, it will not be part of the Travelcard
system, whereas we recommend that the bus service from the centre
of London to the Dome should be part of the Travelcard system.
We therefore give notice that, failing a more constructive response
to this recommendation, we shall have to return to this matter
in our next inquiry into the Millennium later this year (paragraph
29).
(xiv) We have yet to determine what impact
the Government's White Paper on the future of transport will have
on transport to and from the Dome. We remain concerned that parking
facilities around London are being given insufficient priority
and attention. If need be, and if insufficient progress is made,
we shall return to this matter in our next Report on the Millennium
(paragraph 31).
(xv) The Company, deploying a monopoly product,
should use its bargaining position in its negotiations with travel
operators. We expect the Company to deploy this strength to minimise
the overall cost of transport packages and, where appropriate,
travel and accommodation packages, rather than to maximise the
ticket price. The Company should also take care not to commit
too high a proportion of tickets to the transport and travel trades,
both to strengthen further its hand and to ensure that tickets
remain readily available to the public for direct purchase at
face value. Finally, we recommend that the Company give specific
consideration to the negotiation and marketing of transport packages
to the Dome from specific parts of the United Kingdom on particular
days, including such packages linked to displays of "Our
Town Story" from a relevant region (paragraph 35).
(xvi) We recommend that the New Millennium
Experience Company and Greenwich Borough Council work together
to devise a strategy relating to visitors to the site without
tickets for the Experience as a matter of urgency. We shall be
returning to it in some detail in our next inquiry (paragraph
36).
(xvii) We are encouraged by some of the
progress in the development of the Dome's content, but much remains
to be achieved. Some of the outlines of the themes of each Zone
suggest a worthiness which may not attract children, although
Ms Page sought to assure us that each Zone would cover all age
ranges. The Committee is anxious that a visit to the Dome should
not only be instructive for children of all ages, but should be
a happy, absorbing and memorable event. We accept the Company's
contention that the content should not be finalised prematurely,
but equally it cannot be left to the last—or penultimate—minute.
The later the content is in place, the smaller will be the margin
for error. Early completion of at least parts of the content,
and more information about the remainder, should also assist in
marketing the Dome. Design concepts alone cannot sell the Dome
to the public or, indeed, to the travel trade which requires lead
times which are already being eroded (paragraph 40).
(xviii) We serve notice that, during our
next inquiry, we will accept no further delay relating to the
provision of relevant information. We are prepared to take oral
evidence from the Company and the responsible Minister in private
if necessary to receive the information we require about the Company's
financial affairs. We expect the Corporate Plan and the Report
and Accounts of the Company to be made available to Parliament
as a matter of urgency. We note that "the turn of the year"
is the target for completion of sponsorship and we expect to be
able to assess the weight of sponsor commitment more thoroughly
in our next inquiry and, in particular, whether contracts have
been exchanged. We also expect that the value of sponsorship in
kind should be subject to rigorous internal audit to ensure that
this does not artificially inflate the sponsorship figures (paragraph
43).
(xix) We recommend that the New Millennium
Experience Company should hold an Open Meeting in Greenwich before
we institute our next inquiry into the Millennium in November
1998 (paragraph 48).
