Round one - victory! The government has done the right thing and the dome gets another chance. Other bidders - now suddenly many more - can come forward and suggest something better than a disgraceful fire-sale at a knock-down price to property developers. It would have been the final scandal of the dome's history. The panic that seized the government at the end of last year is over. There is time to stop and think, time to consider every option - "as long as it takes," says Lord Falconer - no artificial deadlines. But will it be saved as a public space? Now the dome is closed, the spate of bad news that hung over it like a thick smog has lifted. Panic was the danger - the same panic that seized governments before. The Festival of Britain of 1951, besieged by many of the same headlines calling it a monstrous waste of public money, was razed to the ground the day it closed to save further public embarrassment. The incoming Conservative government smashed the Skylon to pieces and bulldozed the Dome of Discovery, both icons that would now be loved and revered landmarks. They couldn't move fast enough to pull down the Crystal Palace after the Great Exhibition of 1851 and remove it to a distant suburb where it later burned to the ground. The moment a great public exhibition closes is the moment when it is least fashionable and least valued. Its value plummets so low people can't even see the value of the land around it. By the time the final deal is done, we will look back on the idea of selling this majestic site for a fraction of its true worth with utter incredulity.  Talking to top London property dealers yesterday, they said there had been a phenomenal conspiracy of silence among the five big property companies who stood by and looked on as Legacy seemed about to be given it almost as a gift. "We could not believe it," said one leading estate agent. Why the silence? Well, it was government business and no one wanted to make trouble, with future contracts in mind. But consider this, said one. Canary Wharf is just 40 seconds' travel time from the dome peninsula. Last November the Canary Wharf Group plc acquired a new 6.3-acre tract of land for development in North Canary Wharf called Shed 35. It cost them 53m. That is the same sum Legacy was proposing to put down on 63 similar acres, with just another 75m to follow later. "The site value   has soared in the past 20 months since bids were first invited. Now there is a tube and infrastructure, it's a different game." He reckons a full and fair global competition will bring in a sizeable fortune for the site - and still leave plenty of room for publicly owned space.  Now for round two. This spectacular peninsula is the most beautiful piece of undeveloped urban landscape in the capital, surrounded by the Thames on three sides, under a great wide sky with breathtaking views in all directions. Reached by boat and by one of London's most architecturally exciting new tube stations, this is a dream public space, a park, a treasure. Once sold off and built over, it will be gone for ever, unreclaimable for the public. Richard Rogers, architect of this mighty white structure, is one of those who has been fighting hard behind the scenes to keep it as a publicly owned place for ever. If the Skylon, the Dome of Discovery and the Crystal Palace still stood, how extraordinary it would seem now ever to sell them off. If some of the dome land is now sold well, the dome and its park can remain a public place, with no need to sell it, though it might be rented. The day will come - probably soon - when some Olympic or other sporting or cultural event will need the dome in a capital bereft of wonderful sites. The failure of Wembley Stadium plans is just another example of how badly Britain does great national monuments. But now we have a chance to get this right.  The last great dome crisis forced the Millennium Commission angrily to fork out a final 47m last October. But this sum was never actually drawn down. In its last three months, according to one millennium commissioner, increased numbers of visitors meant the dome broke even and never used those final funds that caused such volcanic public fury. The money is there, already given to the dome, and it should be used to help ensure the dome remains a public space. But the real endowment comes from the land around it, sold to create a trust for it in perpetuity.  Richard Rogers has an ambitious vision for the place and is likely to join better developers to propose a scheme for the North Greenwich peninsula that would be a model for the kind of regeneration his Urban Task Force advocates. It would include at least 40% affordable housing for the local community: he has been talking with Peabody and Rowntree about social housing possibilities. It would be a high density cityscape with shops and offices as well as homes, looking on to a leisure park around the dome that would be a national attraction for sports and concerts - run by PY or the BBC/Tussauds group, or any other entertainment consortium. He talks of things built in Barcelona and Amsterdam, and London's terrible past   mistakes. Last time I wrote about the dome, a fair number of emails from around the country complained bitterly at any more public time, money or attention being thrown at this London site. They have a point. It would have been better had the dome been built elsewhere. But there it is now in Greenwich, a national treasure on a site of natural beauty. Huge sums have been wasted, but that is no reason to waste the only good that can come from it.  Rogers points across the water to Canary Wharf, the great emblem of the Thatcher era - all offices, stylish restaurants and expensive houses, a pure property developers' hygienic, anodyne heaven straight from the brochure. It is an eerie place - no children, schools or old people, no workers, beggars, misfits, everything crisp and pricey for its cloned battalions of young professionals, with none of the eccentric, random oddity that breathes real   city life. Now imagine across the water a Labour era development in complete social contrast, a regeneration project as a model for other city schemes.  The question is: does this mark new thinking by Labour? In the early days, how avidly they sought to show they were as friendly to private developers as any conservative government. The tube is the next big question, as bargaining continues ferociously behind the scenes. Gordon Brown, jaw set, says the risk of major construction programmes must all be borne by private companies, despite passionate public opinion in favour of keeping it publicly owned. He ploughs on with the sale of air traffic control too, against the public will. But somewhere in the heart of government, the dome decision may herald the start of a welcome change of attitude for the second term.