The deadline for the sale of the Royal Navy’s former flagship HMS Ark Royal has been extended because of the amount of interest from potential buyers, the Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday.
Bidders for the aircraft carrier, which has been advertised on the MoD auction website www.edisposals.com since March, originally had until yesterday to submit their tenders.
But the Defence Equipment and Support agency, which is responsible for equipping the country’s armed forces, has now extended the deadline until July 6.
A DE&S spokesman said: “The tender closing date has been extended owing to the amount of interest in the ship from potential buyers.”
Although the Ark Royal, which is currently at Portsmouth Naval Base, Hampshire, could be sold for its scrap metal, other proposals for it include a commercial heliport in London as well as a base for special forces to provide security at next year’s Olympic Games.
And a move could be made to turn it into a nightclub and school in China.
Other reported plans for the ship include a casino in Hong Kong or to sink it as a dive wreck off the UK south coast.
The sale of Ark Royal follows that of its sister ship HMS Invincible which was towed away to a scrapyard in Turkey after being sold on the same internet site.
The website is run by the DE&S arm of the MoD which has a budget of £14 billion to equip the UK’s armed forces.
Meanwhile the Head of the Royal Navy, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope said the British government will have to make “challenging decisions” about military priorities if the Nato-led Libya campaign continues beyond the summer.
He also conceded that elements of the operation would have been cheaper and “much more reactive” if the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal had not been scrapped.
But he insisted he was not calling for the decision to axe the vessel and its Harrier jump jets – part of wide-ranging cuts to the armed forces announced last year – to be reopened.
Critics of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) have seized on the lack of an aircraft carrier for the mission against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces as evidence the SDSR was misguided.