The future of Britain’s “window on the stars” looked bleak yesterday after an independent assessment of its scientific value was largely ignored by a funding body.

An independent panel of astronomers described the e-Merlin project, led from the Jodrell Bank observatory in Manchester, as having “dramatic potential”. They were so impressed by the sensitivity of the network of radiotelescopes that they said its cosmic observations were “guaranteed to lead to major discoveries”.

However, their strong recommendation to give the project a high ranking, to protect it from being dismantled during a round of funding cuts, went unheeded. The failure to adopt their recommendations has prompted Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat MP who chairs the Commons Innovation, Universities and Skills Select Committee, to write to John Denham, the Secretary of State of the corresponding department, demanding that he gives an explanation for the decision.

Space science and physics projects are in turmoil because of a funding crisis in which they are facing an estimated shortfall of £80 million. The cash shortage is overseen by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which is trying to identify which schemes should be dropped.

Times Archive, 1952: Largest radio telescope

Unexplored regions of the universe will be opened to astronomers when the world's largest radio telescope is completed at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire

• Jodrell Bank telescope nearing completion

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Its recommendations provoked claims of bias this year, and in response a series of independent assessments were ordered with the intention that they were regarded as being fair.

Jodrell Bank, which has made some of the most important astronomical discoveries of the past half-century, is likely to close if e-Merlin is dismantled because it forms a key part of the observatory’s funding.

The threat to Jodrell and the e-Merlin project, disclosed by The Times, was one of the issues that prompted the STFC to order a review, which was carried out by its Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics Science Committee (PPAN). The committee originally gave e-Merlin the lowest rating, meaning that its funds would be stopped, but the independent panel, chaired by Professor Martin Ward, of Durham University, concluded that e-Merlin should be given the second-highest ranking.

The independent assessors said in their report: “It is difficult to predict which subject areas are likely to provide the highest science return, but with a factor-of-30 increase in sensitivity of e-Merlin it is guaranteed to lead to major discoveries. E-Merlin could be a world-leading facility well into the next decade.”

After seeing the recommendation the PPAN committee altered its ranking of e-Merlin but gave it the second-bottom rating of five, meaning that it would be in the second wave of projects to face losing its funding.

Professor Ward said it was depressing that the views of his group were dismissed. “We think e-Merlin should be given at least a couple of years to prove itself,” he said. “I felt we had achieved something but we were disappointed they didn’t move along the way we suggested.”

Another member of the independent panel, Professor James Hough, of the University of Hertfordshire, said that because there had been a public outcry at the threat of closure, the STFC would find it difficult to cut the funding for e-Merlin when the body’s council meets on July 1.

Mr Willis said that the failure of the committee to listen to the independent panel was typical of the way that the STFC operated. “This is a research council which at the moment doesn’t have the confidence of its community. STFC have dug themselves into a hole and there’s an element of self-preservation here creeping in,” he said.

An STFC spokeswoman said that no one was available to comment.

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