Last updated at 17:08, Friday, 21 September 2012

A WOMAN who led a campaign to save Barrow-built HMS Invincible from the scrap heap has expressed frustration at new plans to preserve her sister ship in Portsmouth.

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For almost six years Lorraine Robinson lobbied to have the light aircraft carrier brought back to Barrow to form the centrepiece of the proposed £200m marina development.

Her calls to save the ship, which was launched in 1977, decommissioned in 2005 and finally retired in 2010, fell on deaf ears and it was sold to a Turkish recycling company last year.

But now it has emerged the HMS Illustrious – the second in the Invincible class and built near Newcastle – will be preserved as a tribute to the class when it is retired in 2014.

Miss Robinson, 48, who fondly remembers watching the Invincible make its way into Walney Channel as a 13-year-old, said it was a real shame Barrow had missed out.

She said: “I must say I was upset when I heard they are going to do with Illustrious exactly the same thing as what I campaigned for to be done for Invincible.

“It is just a shame that the proposal that we put forward to the Ministry of Defence was ignored – and blatantly ignored – despite them saying at the time it was a good idea.”

First published at 17:07, Friday, 21 September 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk