Plans for world's last remaining Blackburn Beverley are flying high after fundraising target hit

Solway Aviation Museum has raised £60,000 and cash and offers of help continue to come in to move the partially dismantled aircraft from Fort Paull, near Hull.

Backers include the Beverley Association and a company near Hull has offered to lend a wagon to transport parts of the world’s last surviving Blackburn Beverley, which will have to be lifted out over the fortress walls.

The last of only 49 ever built at Brough in East Yorkshire, the giant Beverley XP259 was used for troop and cargo transport by the Royal Air Force until 1967.

Previously the plane was on show at Fort Paull until it closed in January 2020.

The wings, engines and tailplane were taken off by engineers working for previous owner Martyn Wiseman, who bought it at auction and whose own rescue mission ran out of steam.

He is donating the aircraft to the museum, next to Carlisle Lake District Airport, for free.

Museum chairman Dougie Kerr said: "People have been so generous, whether donating money or volunteering to come and help us. Last night someone donated £2,000.

"We've had a £990 donation from a guy in New York. At the weekend I did a piece for a magazine in New Zealand.

"People are saying to me you must be mad – but you are brave to do it. We've been contacted by a guy called Mike, who has a transport business from the Hull area and he’s willing to help with a wagon and forklift.

"The money is now there to transport it from Hull to here and when it gets here we will reassemble it and paint it and any parts that are beyond repair we will have to replace or get manufactured."