£340,000 to promote empty Dome

The Government has spent nearly £340,000 employing a public relations firm to enhance the image of the empty Millennium Dome, it emerged today.

The sum was revealed by Culture Minister Kim Howells in a parliamentary written answer which shows the cost of employing City PR firm Cardew and Co to provide "external press support" has totalled £339,000.

This latest figure to emerge from the Dome's affairs pushes up the cost of keeping it running since it closed 11 months ago to about £22 million, but there has still been no decision on who will take over the site.

The answer to Liberal Democrat Nick Harvey's questions today also shows Cardew did not have to compete with other PR firms for the job. The company was taken on in October last year "at a time of very high press interest", Mr Howells writes, explaining that NMEC needed a press agency "which had previous experience of corporate rescue situations and experience of complex financial matters." Cardew has been paid for by NMEC out of Lottery cash, but the Government has not provided any assessment of how well, or badly, it has done the job, saying this is a matter for NMEC alone.

Mr Harvey, the Liberal Democrats' culture spokesman, said: "The Dome has had rotten PR, so you have to ask what has been done by this firm which is considered so important." Shadow culture secretary Tim Yeo called it "an outrageous sum", adding: "The idea that you need an expensive consultant for an empty building, where their main aim seems to be to prevent any media coverage, is quite ludicrous."

A culture department spokesman said the hourly rate paid to Cardew was " commercially confidential". He added that no approval of its appointment was needed by ministers, as it was up to the NMEC.