Press Cuttings Transcripts
Livingstone eyes a Dome of his own
Sunday Telegraph, 04 July 2004
The Mayor of London wants to build a huge conference centre. Will it prove
to be another white elephant? Edward Simpkins reports.
Ken Livingstone, London's freshly re-elected mayor, is considering building a
huge international conference centre somewhere in the capital.
The project, which will almost certainly require public funding, is bound to
prove controversial. It leaves Livingstone open to the charge that the centre
could prove a loss-making white elephant, a monument to over-weening ambition
and his desire to leave a permanent mark on the capital.
So Livingstone has appointed a commission to make the business case for the
convention centre.
Speaking to Gerry Acher, the chairman of the commission, leaves little doubt of
his enthusiasm. He already seems convinced that London‘s status as an
international business centre is not matched by its facilities for visitors.
However, Acher – currently the chairman of Camelot, a former London senior
partner of KPMG and one of the organizers of the Queen's Golden Jubilee
celebrations – seems unlikely to stake his reputation on the success of the
centre. He has held a beauty parade of consultants to carry out a full
feasibility study.
The basic case for the ICC, Acher says, is that there is no venue in London
capable of seating, accommodating, feeding and entertaining more than 1,000
delegates for a three-day conference. The ExCeL exhibition centre in Docklands
can cope with the visitors, Acher says, but adds there is not enough
accommodation or restaurant facilities nearby.
"The push is very simple" Acher says. "It is an economic push. Tourism is now
one of the UK's key earners and it is becoming more and more important to
London." He points to research showing that the average spend for all visitors
to London is about £50 per head per day, with business visitors spending about
£135. But conference visitors spend about £180.
Also, a quarter of business visitors come back with their families, he says.
Conference travellers to Berlin now contribute €60m (£40m) a year, he says,
while conference travellers to Vienna contribute €216m (£144m).
Other cities in Britain are also vying for this cash. Newcastle and Liverpool
are pushing ahead with plans for convention centres while the Manchester
centre, built for the Commonwealth Games in 2002, reported a small profit last
year. Dublin is also in the process of building a centre.
Katie Kopec, a European director of Jones Lang LaSalle, the property
consultant, sits on the commission along with Martin George, British Airway's
marketing and commercial development director. Kopec says they are out to prove
that the scheme will not be a white elephant.
"It is difficult to know how to judge success," she says, pointing out that some
cities, such as Vancouver, have used convention centres to raise their
international profile from a low starting point. This is hardly a problem for
London, however.
"From all perspectives, it has to stack up financially. I'm very rigirous on the
financial aspects of this, especially with the requirement for public sector
finance," she says.
Acher admits that the scheme will see "litte change from £200m" and would have
to "take its place in the food queue behind schools and hospitals".
The options for providing this funding, he says, range from a bond issue backed
by a tax on visitors to a tax on Londoners or a grant from the Government.
Potential sites for the centre are Stratford in east London, Paddington in the
west and Greenwich in the south east of the capital.
Acher says an initial review of likely levels of demand for the centre will be
published in October, with a full economic impact study due early next year.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the sort of income for the capital and the
country that a succesful convention centre could generate would benefit us all.
The stage we are at now is to prove it," he says.
"This will be the third of fourth time that an attempt has been made in the past
10 years to see whether we should have an ICC in London," he adds. "The y have
all failed, either because of the state of the economy or the message hasn't
got across or there hasn't been enough support."
This time will be different, he says, because the Mayor provides leadership
that was lacking previously. "If we are able to make the maths work and we can
find a location and prove that the demand is there, then I believe we will have
the leadership to make it happen."
Which probably means that we should all be a little scared, since his arguments
have a whiff of the lobbying that took place before the construction of that
bull among British white elephants, the Millennium Dome.