Legacy plan last gasp for Blair's white elephant

There is an atmosphere of uncertainty at the Millennium Dome. The persistently cheery Dome "hosts", who meet and greet visitors and must answer silly questions posed by the public, know they will be out of a job by the end of the year. Some are despondent and many haven't a clue where they will find work and it seems hard for them to smile through the adversity of an uncertain future.

The British government's decision earlier this week to confer preferred bidder status on the Legacy group, in which the Irish group Treasury Holdings has an 85 per cent share, means the majority of the site will be turned into a high-tech business park, or "Knowledge City". It is likely that the site will remain empty for some time before Legacy moves the builders in. But for many of the people working at the Dome, they are concerned more with securing a new job than worrying about what it will be turned into when they leave.

Inside the second floor Bradley Suite, representatives from the British Army, the British Airways-owned budget airline, Go, Legoland and the retail group, Pret A Manger, have set up stalls at a recruitment fair to identify new employees among Dome workers. "Paul" from Pret A Manger says it is proving a bit difficult to recruit because the company is offering a marginally lower starting wage than the £6-anhour the Dome pays. Michael, who works in the one of the Dome's many restaurants, picks up a few leaflets from the stall, but later confirms Paul's observation when he says the pay isn't good enough.

Perhaps the problem with the Dome, setting aside complaints about its contents, is that it elicits such extreme views. From the amount of money spent to build it to what should be done with it in the future, the British public never really got behind it and therefore making a success of the Dome was always going to be an uphill struggle.

Once the Dome became synonymous with New Labour's shallow Cool Britannia project, the vicious carping from the Conservatives and the tabloid press ensured its status as Labour's "white elephant". If they can't say it publicly, then privately the government must be counting down the days to signing on the dotted line and getting rid of the Dome.

Soon after it opened there were calls for heads to roll at the top as bad press about the queues, the exhibits and the poor attendance figures grew. Ms Jenny Page, the Dome's original chief executive and Mr Robert Ayling, the chairman, have already obliged. The Conservatives - it was the former deputy prime minister, Mr Michael Heseltine, who thought up the idea for a Millennium Dome - set the original, and hugely ambitious as it turned out, attendance figures. But in the end Labour agreed to the figure, only revising it down years later, and decided to stick with the Dome.

Thankfully, because it really is a tremendous structure, it appears the head of Legacy, Mr Robert Bourne, and his financial backers will grant Mr Heseltine's wish that the Dome's structure should not be torn down. Mr Heseltine said it would be a "tragedy" and although some observers have pointed to the "poverty" of its contents as a metaphor of the cultural wasteland we are in, many architects consider the Dome magnificent to behold.

The pledge by Treasury Holdings to turn the attraction into a kind of eco-friendly, high-tech business park will apparently create 14,000 jobs on the north Greenwich peninsula, which was once a drab, forgotten wasteland on the fringe of south-east London.

The Chamber of Commerce believes high-tech companies will move to the Dome site and that the potential exists for the new business park to complete a "golden triangle" of opportunity with enterprise and creative services already based in the City and the West End.

Anecdotal evidence emerged this week, however, to suggest Mr Bourne might find it difficult to convince entrepreneurs and new companies to relocate to north Greenwich. Sections of the British press are sceptical that anyone can make a success of the Dome site and that will be a problem for Legacy. Also, some City investors have suggested that following the collapse of several dot.com companies in March, few Internet companies will be able to afford to move onto the Dome site where rents are expected to be high.

Other business analysts argue that the Dome's awkward location, despite good public transport links, could deter investors. "One building does not make a business incubator," observed Mr Jonathan Lander, head of DDL, a high-tech investment company in an interview with the Times. "An incubator is not about physical infrastructure; it's about a network of people. I can't see me, or any other venture capitalist, going all the way out there to look at sexy new companies. I would hate to be the first tenant in the Millennium Dome."

At the Dome, opinion is mixed about the future. Sucking on a cigarette during a break, senior Dome host Mr Sebastian Moh, says it would be a shame if the site were turned into a London version of California's Silicon Valley. "The companies will come here and they will pay the rents," he says. "But this has been a good exhibition. Even though we knew it would only be for one year, it will be sad to see it go."

Greeting visitors, Chandani Algama, who has worked at the Dome for the past year and who mentions the catchphrase "One Amazing Day" in nearly every sentence, is worried about leaving her job. "It has been beautiful, a wonderful, amazing experience working here. We are unsure and we are worried about getting new jobs." Chandani says it will be sad to see Dome exhibits sold off (some exhibits, such as those owned by British Telecom, will be used by the companies elsewhere) but she thinks a new business park on the site could work.

Back at the recruitment fair, the representatives of Legoland and Pret A Manger are chatting among themselves, waiting for the next group of Dome employees to walk through the door. Nearby, in the Journey Zone, a sign outside the attraction sums up the different concerns about the site voiced by Dome workers and cynical business commentators: "Where do we go from here?"