Millennium Tent. The canopy is high in the middle – for each week of the year and is made of durable and weather-resistant PTFE-coated glass fibre fabric panels (original plans to use PVC-coated polyester fabric were dropped after protest led by Greenpeace), with each of the 72 segments containing two panels. Its symmetry is interrupted by a hole through which a ventilation shaft from the Blackwall Tunnel rises. Six segments were destroyed during Storm Eunice on 18 February 2022. Built in 15 months, the dome structure was delivered under budget, at a cost of £43m. The critic Jonathan Meades has scathingly referred to the Millennium Dome as a "Museum of Toxic Waste", and apart from the dome itself, the project included the reclamation of the entire Greenwich Peninsula. The land was previously derelict and contaminated by toxic sludge from East Greenwich Gas Works that operated from 1889 to 1985. The clean-up operation was seen by the then Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine as an investment that would add a large area of useful land to the crowded capital. Background to the Dome project The Dome project was conceived, originally on a somewhat smaller scale, under John Major's Conservative government, as a Festival of Britain or World's Fair-type showcase to celebrate the third millennium. The incoming Labour government elected in 1997 under Tony Blair greatly expanded the size, scope and funding of the project, and construction began in June 1997. It also significantly increased expectations of what would be delivered. Just before its opening Blair claimed the Dome would be "a triumph of confidence over cynicism, boldness over blandness, excellence over mediocrity". In the words of BBC correspondent Robert Orchard, "the Dome was to be highlighted as a glittering New Labour achievement in the next election manifesto", but criticised in the 2001 Conservative Party manifesto as "banal, anonymous and rootless", and lacking "a sense of Britain's history or culture". Following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, a member of the Dome's board suggested the project be refashioned and extended "to accommodate, for example, a hospital, businesses, charities, private residences, and the whole thing named 'the Princess Diana Centre. The idea was later scrapped. Before its opening, the Dome was excoriated in Iain Sinclair's diatribe, Sorry Meniscus – Excursions to the Millennium Dome (Profile Books: London 1999, ), which forecast the hype, the associated political posturing, and the eventual disillusion. The