DURING this tenth anniversary year of discovering the medieval ship in the muds of the River Usk, we should thank all those who helped in the rescue of the ship timbers, and for the subsequent painstaking work to treat, classify and preserve them ready for when the ship is reassembled as a national/international treasure.

Here in Newport we must consider ourselves very lucky to have this very important archaeological find, and now it’s up to us all to do our utmost to bring about the reassembly of the ship and find a suitable exhibition site.

If we succeed in finding this site close to the city centre, I can envisage a lot of visitors from inside and outside the UK wanting to come to see the ship, with all the attendant benefits to Newport economy and regeneration. Newport needs the support of the WG and other funders to get the ship reconstructed and to finance a suitable city centre exhibition site. It’s difficult but not unrealistic for this excellent Wales/UK archaeological and maritime discovery.

Councillor Miqdad Al-Nuaimi, Cae Perllan Road, Newport