City MP Stephen Morgan has pledged support to a new Royal Marines Museum in its SeaMore campaign which aims to raise funds to relocate the national asset from Eastney to the Historic Dockyard.

The museum in Eastney shut last year as the building was no longer fit for purpose and was due to move to a new site in Portsmouth in 2020. However the move was delayed for at least two years after a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of nearly £13m was refused, despite giving initial funding in 2016.

Following Mr Morgan recently joining other stakeholders to launch a new campaign for funding for a revised proposal for the Royal Marines Museum, he invited Gerald Jones MP, Shadow Minister for Veterans, Reserves and Personnel to visit the Historic Dockyard last week.

Seeking the Shadow Minister’s support, the city MP took Mr Jones on a tour of the National Museum for the Royal Navy, met with a museum director, and visited the proposed new site at Boathouse no 6.

The museum has managed to raise £5m of funding through its own SeaMore campaign however needs a further £5m to make the move.

Pledging his support Stephen Morgan MP said:

“When the current Royal Marines Museum closed we not only lost a huge asset to Portsmouth but also to the country.

We owe it to all those who serve, or have served, in the Royal Marines that we preserve the sacrifice and achievement of the service across its 350 years.

In order for this to happen, it must be displayed in setting that is fit for purpose. The ideal new home for the museum is in the Historic Dockyard alongside the National Museum for the Royal Navy. 

I pledge my support for this move and call on everyone in our city to come together to back the museum’s fundraising efforts.”

Donations to the SeaMore fund can be made here.