The “Swindon Dome” does have a ring to it. It has emerged Tony Blair’s government received a proposition to move the Millennium Dome – later redeveloped and rebranded as the O2 – to Swindon. The building in south-east London was mired in controversy from its conception right through its opening on 1 January 2000 and on to the days in which ministers agonised over what to do next with what critics called a monument to government ineptitude. By early 2001, ministers were anxious to offload the £800m structure on the Greenwich peninsula, regarded as a costly white elephant. The much-vaunted Millennium Experience had attracted barely half the projected 12 million visitors. According to newly released papers from the National Archives, they were presented with a surprise bid from the Science Museum’s director, Lindsay Sharp, to move it 80 miles (130km) west to Wiltshire. In a letter to the prime minister, Sharp suggested that it could be repurposed to house a new museum on an old military airfield at Wroughton on the outskirts of Swindon. “I am writing to you about a completely different and exciting possibility for the Dome,” he wrote. “This proposal presents a unique range of features at a time when such characteristics may, together, provide a unique solution to the challenges of the Dome.” It could, he suggested, become home to “a major new public facility devoted to interactivity and immersively exhibiting the latest in practical aspects and research into sustainability” while freeing the valuable Greenwich site for redevelopment. Sharp admitted, however, that he did not know whether the plan – involving the relocation of a structure 365 metres (1,200ft) in diameter and 52 metres (170ft) high – was actually feasible. “This is a ‘big concept’ approach and would need a rapid and detailed evaluation,” he wrote. The idea failed to catch the imagination of ministers. In December 2001 it was announced that Meridian Delta Ltd had been chosen to redevelop the site as a sports and entertainment centre and in 2005 it was renamed the O2 Arena.