Students tasked with planning shipbuilding museum

University students have been tasked with creating a business plan for a new shipbuilding heritage museum.

A petition to establish a permanent tribute to the north-east of England's shipbuilding past has collected more than 1,300 signatures since November.

As part of Northumbria University's business clinic, a group of master's students are working with an academic supervisor, looking at the feasibility of establishing the museum and long-term funding routes which organisers can then take forward.

Prof John Wilson said the "experiential learning" project would be challenging but worthwhile as the industry was part of the region's DNA.

The Newcastle Business School professor said: "You talk to just about anybody who has friends or relatives here and they've got some kind of connection with the shipbuilding or engineering industry."

The university clinic regularly takes clients from various organisations and is popular with social enterprises "largely because they don't have the resources to do the work themselves," Wilson said.

He is also part of a new working group to help create the prospective museum site in South Tyneside.

The students' plan is expected to be presented in September and Wilson vowed: "We will ensure that they produce an effective report that we can then implement."

Campaign organisers said they had already received a number of public submissions for the prospective museum, adding: "For generations, the Tyne, Wear and Tees were synonymous with shipbuilding."

"But this industry didn't just build vessels - it built our towns, our communities and our identity."

Group founder Bronwyn Mogie, from Jarrow, said: "Their stories deserve to be remembered, protected and shared with future generations."

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