Scale of Dome waste revealed

The scale of waste at the Millennium Dome was exposed today with the revelation that equipment worth £80 million was stacked unopened in a remote corner of the site.

As the Government struggled to get the attraction open in time for January 2000, purchases which were not working or not required were taken to an area called Yard 10.

Items included a cherry-picker crane that was a few feet too short to reach the roof and a train that was supposed to take visitors around the Dome, but which failed health-and-safety tests.

Troubleshooter David James, the man who saved the Dome from financial collapse, discovered the stockpile when he arrived in September 2000. Its existence was kept secret until today.

Mr James said: "One of the early discoveries we had was that there was a place called Yard 10, the repository for everything which had been bought for the Dome which didn't work. In that yard we had something like £80 million worth of equipment which had never been out of the packing cases."

The figure amounts to a tenth of the total £800million cost of building and operating the Dome exhibition.

More than £600million of the money came from National Lottery funds. During its 12 months in operation, the Dome had to be bailed out five times after fewer than half the expected 12million visitors turned up.

National Audit Office experts investigating 128 Dome contracts found that the paperwork was missing, making it impossible to find out whether taxpayers got value for money.

Mr James spoke about the scandal as he was appointed to head a Tory party investigation into the scale of Whitehall waste. The Tories hope the move will justify their claim that billions could be cut from public spending without harming services.

However, Labour pointed out that a government review is already examining whether billions can be saved on Whitehall overheads and diverted to front-line services.