Posted on 19th May 2011
Did the Millennium Projects create white elephants or national treasures? A new report from the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) considers the impact of the Millennium Projects, ranging from the Eden Project and Tate Modern to hundreds of lesser-known community projects, 10 years on.
Millennium Now looks at the what investing around £2.7bn in these projects achieved and asks whether similar projects should be funded in the future. BIG interviewed people who got the projects off the ground, those involved in running them day-to-day; and visitors to the projects in assessing how well they did.
Mike O’Connor, former chief executive of the Millennium Commission, said: “Ten years on it is time to ask if we created white elephants or national treasures.” and reveals: “A few projects went belly-up but if we had made no mistakes it would have meant we had not taken enough risks.”
The report focuses on particular projects such as the Millennium Dome, the Scottish Seabird Centre, the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. It highlights some key achievements:
- 6,900 permanent jobs were created by Millennium Commission funded projects
- 6,500 miles of cycle and walking route as part of the National Cycle Network
- More than 3,000 babies born with help of the Fertility Centre at Life
- Over 10% of the world’s wild plant species collected and conserved - Millennium Seed Bank
In terms of lessons learned, the Millennium Capital Fund required projects to prove they could raise significant support before it would invest. On average, it paid for less than half the cost of the projects. It also refused to provide long-term revenue support so that projects had to meet a public need or they would fail. All but a few have thrived. By 2010, only three of the 225 projects the Commission supported had closed – the Big Idea in Irvine, the Earth Centre in Doncaster and the Millennium Faith Experience in Bradford.
“The three closures were all disappointing, but a 1.5% failure rate in such a risk-bearing enterprise is a pretty outstanding outcome when the average venture capitalist works on the assumption that 20% of the projects they invest in will not pay off.”
To oversee the future development of BIG, Peter Ainsworth has been appointed as UK Chair and co-founder of Impetus Trust, Nat Sloane as the England Committee Chair.
To download the report, visit: the website.
BIG is inviting members of the public to decide how BIG should build on the legacy of Millennium projects through a new £11m programme to deliver five “inspirational projects”.
To have your say on the future of BIG, visit http://www.millenniumnow.org.uk/.
