KEY POINTS:
The British Government is to give £250,000 ($703,000) towards the restoration of two huts used by its Antarctic explorers a century ago.
The huts, used by Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton, are in the New Zealand-administered Ross Sea area.
The restoration project has been a labour of love for the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust.
It has been painstakingly restoring Shackleton's hut at Cape Royds and needs about $9 million to do the same at Scott's building at Cape Evans.
The donation will kick-start a British fund-raising campaign to restore Scott's hut.
The Antarctic Heritage Trust chairman, former Cabinet minister Paul East, QC, said yesterday that it and its British sister trust, to which the funding would be passed, were particularly thankful for the efforts of many high-profile supporters after earlier indications that direct British Government funding was unlikely.
Mr East thanked the New Zealand Government and Prime Minister Helen Clark, who has been pressing the case with her British counterpart.
He said the £250,000 would allow work to start on Scott's hut next summer.
- NZPA
