Thanet Council hopes the ship will become a visitor attraction

The Hugin Viking ship, which has deteriorated over the past half-century, has been promised a complete makeover this summer.

Thanet District Council has agreed to put �105,000 towards repairing and refurbishing the vessel, with the remainder to be met by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The money will pay for the ship to be lifted and repositioned to allow major repair work to its hull.

Dozens of letters

Dennis Hart, a cabinet member for Thanet District Council, said councillors had decided the cost of maintaining the ship was justifiable because of the level of public support.

He said: "The public have given their opinion to us - we've got dozens of letters highlghting the public's concern and we do feel duty bound to do something about it."

Mr Hart, the Labour councillor for St Lawrence, said work to repair the hull would begin immediately.

"The ultimate aim is to make a visitor attraction out of it.

Traditional techniques

"That will obviously cost absolute fortunes of money but with what we have got so far hopefully we will make a real headline."

Experts from Denmark were invited in 2001 to give advice on how to restore the ship.

They recommended that the existing masonry supports around the hull should be replaced by timber struts based on traditional Viking boat building techniques.

The ship is notable as an early attempt at building a replica vessel and because so much was learned about Viking techniques during its construction.

However, an attempt last year to have it made a listed monument failed.

The grant fromThanet Council was agreed as part of its budget for 2003 to 2004.