黑洞社区

The board, shocked by the decision last week by the Heritage Lottery Fund to block a bid for 拢15m of public money, will decide whether to abandon the campaign to raise money for the scheme.

The trustees will consider three options: to keep searching for public funds, to consider an alternative scheme, or to abandon the project.

Peter Rogers, the chairman of the strategic forum, who sits on the board, described the Heritage Lottery Fund鈥檚 decision as 鈥渉ugely unfortunate鈥�.

He said: 鈥淭here are a lot of private donors to the scheme but we need public money or the whole thing鈥檚 scuppered. We are talking to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to work out where we go from here.鈥�

One option could be to scale down Libeskind鈥檚 distinctive spiral design, but Rogers said this would reduce the impact of the scheme.

He said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very dramatic scheme that would be a huge benefit to the whole area around Exhibition Road. The V&A is a design museum but the one thing it doesn鈥檛 have is a modern exemplar building.鈥�

黑洞社区 understands that the scheme fell foul of the Heritage Lottery Fund鈥檚 preference for smaller grass-roots projects, as opposed to landmark initiatives.

Carole Souter, the fund鈥檚 director, said: 鈥淭here is no doubt that Daniel Libeskind鈥檚 vision for the V&A鈥檚 spiral is both imaginative and technically impressive, but it did not deliver well against our key requirements of conservation, education and enjoyment of the UK鈥檚 heritage.鈥�

The project had previously hit problems securing funding for Libeskind鈥檚 design. In 1997 it was denied funding by the Millennium Commission when it was declared 鈥渋nsufficiently distinctive鈥�.

A Rafael Vi帽oly scheme in Colchester, Essex, could be heading for trouble after a leaked report by the East of England Development Agency said it was poor value for money.