The Millennium Commission operated between 1993 and 2005, offering grants to projects across Britain to mark the turn of the millennium. Some were large, like the Millennium Dome, and some were small, like Horton-cum-Studley Village Hall in Oxfordshire. So what did London get out of it?
You'd think there'd be a definitive list of Millennium Commission projects somewhere but seemingly not. There used to be one on the Millennium Commission's website, but someone long ago pressed the destruct button on that. The Millennium Commission's Wikipedia page is disappointingly brief and lists only 25 of the bigger projects. Google searches throw up nothing comprehensive. That's the problem with information from the early digital age, a lot of it we took for granted at the time has completely vanished leaving holes in the public record.
Fortunately the UK Web Archive captured the Millennium Commission's website before it vanished so we can dig back. Unfortunately the Millennium Commission website featured a searchable database of projects and the mechanics of that haven't been preserved. Fortunately the UK Web Archive also saved a copy of a bespoke listing of all 222 projects. Unfortunately the Millennium Commission website decided to split that list into 45 separate pages, five projects at a time, and the archived version only goes up to page 28. Fortunately the Wayback Machine managed to record all 45 pages so I've ploughed incrementally through that.
In which case I believe this to be a full and definitive list of the Millennium Commission's projects in London (plus how much money they gave, plus what proportion of the entire budget that was).
1)B.U.G.S.(£2,200,000, paid 45%): BUGS stands for Biodiversity Underpinning Global Survival and is a modern building within London Zoo housing a range of bugs and small invertebrates. According to the zoo's website "BUGS! is the Zoo’s cutting edge biodiversity and conservation exhibit as well as a great venue with ability to accommodate up to 200 guests for a drinks and bowl food or hot canape reception", so you can see the real reason they were keen to get it built.
2)Bernie Grant Centre(£6,399,248, paid 40%): This Black-led performing arts centre in Tottenham was designed by Sir David Adjaye and opened in 2007.
3)Croydon Skyline(£1,565,055, paid 50%): We're told this was "the largest single urban lighting project ever", not just illuminating the buildings of Croydon but providing an opportunity to project art and poetry across them. I'm not often in Croydon after dark but I bet this has died a death since - the first legacyless project in the list.
4)Golden Jubilee Bridges(£8,684,000, paid 17%): Here's the first biggie on the list, two pedestrian bridges suspended either side of the railway out of Charing Cross, replacing the grim Hungerford Bridge. Much needed, much appreciated.
5)Horniman Museum(£952,404, paid 64%): The Commission helped pay for the new 15-tank aquarium, initially called 'Glimpses of the Wonderful'. A family favourite but at a price - admission is currently £5.
6)Knights Foyer(£2,017,712, paid 45%): This one was news to me, a centre on Sylvan Hill in Crystal Palace offering young people a tailor-made residential training and mentoring programme. But it was deemed 'outdated' by 2015 and replaced by a YMCA offering 80 studio flats to homeless local youth (while another part of the site, jarringly, became 48 luxury flats).
7)Leadership Development Centre(£460,998, paid 37%): This hub at City & Islington College in Islington aimed to created more leaders of African and Caribbean descent in every sphere of life across the UK. I can find no evidence it specifically exists within the current academic set-up, but that may be because society has moved on somewhat since.
8)London Wetland Centre(£95,854, paid 37%): A cheap one, this. The Millennium Commission helped pay for the 'Wetland Secrets' zone to be turned into a travelling exhibition on biodiversity and sent round the country. I think it ended up in Arundel.
9)Mile End Park(£14,722,009, paid 44%): That's by far the largest grant yet paying for the lion's share of my local linear park (thanks!), particularly the ecology park, arts pavilion, five-a-side pitches and sports centre. Tower Hamlets would have achieved far less by themselves.
10)Millennium Bridge(£8,052,500, paid 39%): Millennial cash enabled construction of the first new bridge in central London for over a century, the initially-wobbly 'blade of light'. In its dampened state it's now an intrinsic part of getting around, even if the majority of people using it aren't Londoners.
11)Millennium Centre(£360,000, paid 45%): That's the barnlike hub at Eastbrookend Country Park in Dagenham, by the lakes, which is still used as a centre for ecological education but is best known to locals for its tearoom, and whose interior now feels like a wasted opportunity.
12)Millennium Dome(£789,000,000): The big one, the focus of national celebration, where the tent cost a mere £43m and the remediation and contents cost tons more. Although questionably successful and nearly a huge white elephant it's now a thriving entertainment magnet, and the regeneration of North Greenwich has proved pivotal in improving connectivity in southeast London.
13)Millennium Greens Scheme: There are 250 of these greenspaces across the country and, as we discovered last year, eight in London. Two are in Poplar, the others being in Chadwell Heath, Cricklewood, New Southgate, Sydenham, Tolworth and Waterloo. The Millennium Bridge cost more than all 250 Millennium Greens put together.
14)Millennium Plus(£928,602, paid 42%): The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is the UK's principal venue for Indian cultural education, performance and events. It's celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and is located close to West Kensington station. Millennial funding paid for a new gallery dedicated to Indian Art and for the Mountbatten Auditorium.
15)National Cycle Network: This spreads far beyond London and cost over £200m. Numberedroutes in the capital include 1, 4, 6, 12, 20, 21, 208 and 425.
16)National Maritime Museum(£666,017, paid 47%): This timely intervention paid for the refurbishment of a number of galleries in the Old Observatory Buildings and an audio-visual simulation in the Museum Bridge Gallery allowing visitors to control a cross channel ferry. Thrills indeed.
17)Rich Mix Centre(£5,050,000, paid 20%): Bethnal Green's centre of contemporary culture opened in 2006 and aimed to target adventurous and diverse audiences, indeed is still doing so. Tower Hamlets did rather well out of millennial funding, it seems.
18)Sangat Community Centre(£270,858, paid 49%): The Sangat Centre originally opened in 1981 to provide advice to deprived, needy and inarticulate members of the Asian community in Harrow. Millennium Commission funding enabled a huge step up in accommodation from an old Territorial Army hut to a proper building in Wealdstone.
19)Southwark Cathedral(£5,126,604, paid 48%): Not the whole cathedral, that would be ridiculous. Instead the five million helped pay for a new north entrance, a new refectory wing and a theological teaching library. If my nephew's reading, yes, those toilets.
20)St Barnabas Millennium Church Hall(£435,887, paid 49½%): That's St Barnabas in Pitshanger Lane in Ealing, which swapped a 1940s prefab for a more sympathetic (and soundproofed) hall with meeting rooms, offices, vestry and play surface. See how the Millennium Commission generally didn't provide the majority of funding for its projects, although sometimes it got very close.
21)Stephen Lawrence Centre(£4,168,273, paid 49½%): This opened in 2007 in Lewisham as a lasting tribute to the life and aspirations of murdered schoolboy Stephen Lawrence. It works to tackle underachievement and increase motivation amongst local youth (and if it nudges unfulfilled talent towards a career as an architect, all the better).
22)Tate Modern(£51,357,700, paid 38%): Wow, turning a defunct power station into an art gallery was incredibly expensive. But Tate Modern has been a triumph, attracting far more visitors than were ever originally envisaged, and provides a startling contrast to the greedy commercialisation that's taken place at its sister station in Battersea.
23)Thames 2000 Initiative(£7,177,000, paid 33%): This is the dosh that got five of London's river piers built, or at least upgraded, namely Blackfriars, Tate Britain, Waterloo, Westminster and Tower, enabling the successful launch of Clipper services. It was quite an expensive upgrade too.
24)The British Museum Great Court(£30,000,000, paid 48%): It's hard now to imagine the British Museum without its spectacular glass roof covering the central courtyard, improving all-weather access at a stroke. The money (a lot of money) also went towards opening up the central Reading Room to the public for the first time.
25)The Millennium Memorial Gates(£1.087,500, paid 38%): These are the gates erected at the top of Constitution Hill to commemorate the part played in the both World Wars by men and women from the Indian sub-continent, Africa and the Caribbean. They were inaugurated by the Queen in 2002, and about time too.
26)The Soane Model Gallery(£47,000, paid 4%): And finally, a tiny contribution towards the creation of a ground floor gallery in Lincoln's Inn Fields which put Sir John Soane's historical architectural model collection on public display. The money also went towards the creation of a special interactive DVD, which is now obsolete because the millennium was a very long time ago.
That's 26 things which might not have been built had the calendar not got interesting.
