A Midland restaurant boss’s bid for HMS Ark Royal was today up in the air after a charity submitted plans to sink the carrier six miles off the English Riviera and use it as an artificial diving reef.

Lam Kin-Bong, owner of the Wing Wah chain, has confirmed he had a bid for the 19,000-ton former Royal Navy flagship.

Lam Kin-Bong’s wife, former Midland Businesswoman of the Year Dorian Chan, said she could not reveal the amount the couple bid for the vessel, which is at the naval base in Portsmouth.

Mr Kin-Bong, whose restaurant chain has branches across the region including in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, hopes to turn the Ark Royal into a school or nightclub in China or Liverpool.

The couple is bidding against a number of entrepreneurs for the vessel. Rival suggestions are scrapping the vessel for cash or turning into a marina club. And it has now emerged that a Devon charity, called Wreck the World, has formed and has put in its own rival bid for the Ark.

The latest rival plan, which has the backing of Torbay council, is to lease part of the seabed and scuttle the decommissioned carrier to use as a diving reef. A date for a decision on bids is not known.