Chinese bid to buy Invincible carrier

A BRITISH-based Chinese businessman has lodged a £5 million bid to buy a decommissioned Royal Navy aircraft carrier after it was put up for sale on a government website.

Kin Bong Lam hopes to turn HMS Invincible, which saw action in the Falklands War, into a floating tourist attraction housing cultural and leisure facilities in either China or Liverpool.

Bidding for the vessel - currently lying idle at a dockyard in Portsmouth - closed last week after it was advertised on edisposals.com. Built in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, the Invincible was decommissioned in 2005, 28 years after it was launched, and had been expected to be snapped up for its scrap value.

But Lam hopes to moor the vessel at a marina in China, where it would host an international school, or to tow it to Liverpool if permission to take the ship to China is withheld. The 48-year-old said his favoured option would be to locate the carrier in Zhuhai, near Hong Kong, saving the ship from being scrapped.

Lam, who owns restaurants and a yacht-building firm, said the Invincible would host a Chinese educational institute if it found a new home on the Mersey. "We would be teaching in Chinese, helping anybody understand Chinese language, business and culture," he said.