URGENT talks are under way to enable the legendary Bluebird K7 to be exhibited at the Ruskin Museum in Coniston.

Bill Smith, project manager behind the speedboat’s restoration, said that the record-breaking boat would “not be going to the museum for some time.” Instead he has announced hopes to tour with the boat in order to show it off to as many people as possible.

He also said that there was no planned date for the boat to be taken to the museum, as he had not been offered one.

“We have gone on record saying this is a fully working machine and so was always going to have to be out of a museum for some time,” said Mr Smith. “Whatever happens, Bluebird will have to be taken out several times a year.

“People who want to shut it away in a museum need to look at the bigger picture.

“ It would be narrow-minded to leave it in a museum when we can take it out and keep it in the mind of the public.

“We are happy to store it in the museum when we do not need it.

“But I will not be bringing the boat anywhere near the Ruskin Museum until contracts have been agreed about how we will operate a schedule where we can take it out.

“We don’t have a date because the Lake District National Park Authority and people at Coniston keep telling me they don’t know when we can go.

“They have known about this for ten years. They should have had the red carpet rolled out from the village to our workshop.”

Coniston parish councillor Anne Hall said: “We have been offering Mr Smith dates for months and he won’t agree to any of them.

“Everybody at this end is happy to make the effort to get a date.

“Coniston is Bluebird’s spiritual home. Yes, people go to see it when it is taken out to places like Bute, but people also come from all over to see it at the museum here.

“We are continuing discussions with Mr Smith and will keep talking about getting it here.”

Mr Smith also went on to slam the LDNPA for putting up the “red tape”, which meant that Bluebird was trialled in Bute rather than on Coniston.

“The Scottish Environment Agency let us run the boat, and the army built us a slipway in the loch,” he said. “Doing any of these things in Cumbria would have been impossible, and that is 100 per cent the fault of the national park authority.”

Steve Tatlock, of the LDNPA, said: “We have been asked when Bluebird is going to return to Coniston Water, hopefully to run at speed as she has done on Loch Fad (Isle of Bute).

“We will use public consultation and assessment to evaluate any application to run Bluebird K7 at speed.”