Millennium Dome boss Pierre-Yves Gerbeau has used a Bradford conference as a launch pad for a rocket to the Government over its handling of the ill-fated attraction.

He condemned the "amateur" approach of his ministerial paymasters and accused them of being "interfering and short termist".

And he criticised the previous Conservative and present Labour governments for lacking a long term vision for the Dome in their belief that the £800 million cost would be clawed back in just a year.

Mr Gerbeau, the Dome's chief executive, speaking as part of the Culture Culture conference at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, rebuffed criticism of the attraction saying it had been a success despite flaws during the planning stages.

And he said, despite repeated personal pleas for ministers and civil servants to leave the running of the Dome to professionals, the Government had continued to meddle.

After speaking to delegates from around the country, he told the Telegraph & Argus: "The project was struggling from the beginning over whether it should be a public project or a business.

"At the end of the day they decided to be a business, but it was way too late."

Mr Gerbeau, who had previously worked as an operations director at Disneyland Paris, also said the ministers and civil servants who had conceived the idea had been "arrogant" in their treatment of the project, the expectation it could attract 12 million people in a year and in their refusal to listen to outside concerns.

"If it reached its maximum potential, the Dome could have attracted 7.5 million people in its first year, it took us five years at Disneyland to reach that figure," he said.

"It was never going to attract 12, ten or nine million people. If expectations had been managed differently at the beginning, people would have reacted differently now.

"Politicians have been interfering with the Dome from beginning to end by ministers and now the Tories are trying to use it as a weapon against the Blair Government.

"It should have been a private sector business and if it did it could have broke even after two or three years."

Earlier, speaking to the delegates on the third and final day of the conference, Mr Gerbeau had defended the Dome's record and pointed to surveys showing 88 per cent of visitors were happy with their day out.

"At the moment it's covering its costs and actually making money. The Dome was the right thing to do, but you have to have a long term vision, you don't spend £758 million and expect to break even in a year."

He also took a swipe at the original way businesses had been brought in to sponsor the event saying they were not consulted on how they would like the exhibits to represent their products and said disagreements between civil servants had scuppered plans by Japanese consortium Normura to buy the Dome.

He admitted the original zones had been too independent of each other and needed a more cohesive feel and also said the lack of a car park at the Dome had been a big hindrance.

The conference was designed to give advice to places bidding to the European City of Culture for 2008, such as Bradford.

Mr Gerbeau said people should take from the Dome the importance of bringing in the private sector and long term visions when putting their plans together.

A spokesman for the Department of Culture Media and Sport, responsible for the Dome, said it could not comment on Mr Gerbeau's remarks.