Millennium Commission
The Millennium Commission, a United Kingdom public body, was set up to celebrate the turn of the millennium. It used funding raised through the UK National Lottery to assist communities in marking the close of the second millennium and celebrating the start of the third. The body was wound up in 2006.
Composition
Set up in 1993 by the
Closure
The Commission was wound up in December 2006 and its role was transferred to the
Examples of projects funded
The Commission invested over £2 billion in buildings, environmental projects, celebrations and community schemes. Funded projects include:
- Black Country Urban Forest
- Centre for Life, Newcastle upon Tyne
- Dundee Science Centre
- Eden Project, Cornwall
- Falkirk Wheel
- Glasgow Science Centre
- Winchester Science Centre (formerly INTECH)
- Five Millennium piers for London River Services
- Magna Science Adventure Centre, Rotherham
- Millennium Bridge, London
- Millennium Dome, London
- Ceramica, a museum in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent about the area's pottery industry (closed in 2011)
- The Millennium Forest for Scotland
- Millennium Greens in cities, towns and villages
- Millennium Point, Birmingham
- Millennium Seed Bank, West Sussex
- Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
- National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield (closed in 2000)
- National Space Centre, Leicester
- Odyssey Centre, Belfast
- Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh
- ReDiscover, Newcastle upon Tyne (joint venture with the Wellcome Trust and the Wolfson Foundation)[2]
- Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth
- Sheffield Winter Garden
- The Deep, Hull, an aquarium
- Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
- A number of village halls and community meeting places
Commissioners
There were initially nine commissioners – two ministers, one appointed by the opposition, and six independents. The number of commissioners was reduced to five as the work of the commission decreased. The final members were:
- Minister for Sport
- Floella Benjamin, actress and author
- Heather Couper, broadcaster and writer on space
- Judith Donovan, health and safety commissioner
- Michael Heseltine, former Conservative cabinet minister
Previous commissioners
- Virginia Bottomley
- Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
- Lord Clark of Windermere
- Jack Cunningham
- Matthew d'Ancona
- Richard Scott, Earl of Dalkeith
- Stephen Dorrell
- Sir John Hall
- Robin Dixon, 3rd Baron Glentoran
- Sir Simon Jenkins
- Tessa Jowell
- Lord Montague of Oxford
- Mo Mowlam
- Barbara Roche
- Baroness Scotland of Asthal
- Baron Smith of Finsbury
References
- National Lottery Distributors Dissolution Order 2006 (S.I. 2006/2915), articles 1(2) and 2 (as read with article 1(1) of the Big Lottery Fund (Prescribed Expenditure) Order 2006(S.I. 2006/3202))
- ^ "£4.5m revamp for science centre". BBC News: England. 10 January 2005. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
External links
- Millennium Commission website (archived 22 December 2006)