Proposals to build a £35m museum at the site of the 16th century Mary Rose warship in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard have been met with approval by the city council.

The permanent museum — designed by architects Wilkinson Eyre and interior designers Pringle Brandon — will house the ship within a structure akin to a black, wooden, jewellery box.

Almost 70 per cent of the artefacts (19,000) recovered from the Tudor warship when it was raised from the Solent in 1982 will be on show in the new museum, instead of the mere six per cent currently displayed in a nearby temporary exhibition.

Now that the Mary Rose Trust has secured planning permission and raised half of the £14m shortfall required for the project, it can move forward to stage two and submit a more extensive development application to the Heritage Lottery Fund to secure the £21m earmarked for the museum in January 2008.

The Trust’s CEO, John Lippiett, said: “We have reached a real milestone in the project and taken another step in the fascinating journey of the Mary Rose.

“We can now submit our stage two application with real confidence. We have the planning approval; we have demonstrated considerable success in raising half the money required and are buoyant that we can raise the remainder.”