Setback for Bluebird restoration

Bluebird was salvaged from Coniston Water in March 2001

A bid to restore Donald Campbell's Bluebird has suffered a setback after a bid for financial support was rejected.

Mr Campbell was killed in 1967 while trying to break his own world water speed record on Coniston Water in the Lake District.

Bluebird was recovered from the lake in 2001 and a campaign to restore it for display in the Ruskin and Coniston Museum was launched.

But a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for £940,000 has been rejected.

Bill Smith, the underwater surveyor and amateur diver who discovered the wreck and who is leading the project to restore Bluebird, remains optimistic about the project.

He said: "It's disappointing because we could have wrapped it up on this occasion, quite easily, and made a start on the work.

"But there's no point crying about it. We've got to get up and carry on - that's exactly what Donald Campbell would have done."