Why live a little? Live a Lotto

While the official line might be that the handing over of the old National Pop Music centre to Hallam Uni was just a straight swap - building for some land - the University itself has circulated an internal document which suggests they see it as a purchase:

"You may have heard that the Board of Governors this week gave their approval to the University's plan to purchase the former National Centre for Popular Music for £1.85 million."

Clearly, it's up to the university what they do with their money, but we wonder if the land-swap angle has been played up in order to avoid the tricky question of why, if the University have coughed up nearly GBP2million, this money isn't being handed straight back to the National Lottery.

While we understand that the two mills worth of land is going to be put to work for the good of the people of Sheffield (or at least those who are getting the benefits of the city's regeneration programme), surely the original grants that built the building were intended for some other use than that, and as such, any money at all raised from their sale should be returned to the Arts Council, who used our money to fund GBP11m of the GBP 15m costs?