The UK Royal Navy is planning to replace HMS Endurance with a Norwegian icebreaker ship, scheduled to join the fleet early next year, senior navy sources have said.

The details on if the navy will buy or lease the replacement icebreaker, which would be named Endurance, were not disclosed, according to Portsmouth.co.uk.

The navy had originally planned to repair the vessel at an estimated cost of £30m, but the decision was changed because Whitehall had stalled on funding.

The ocean survey vessel HMS Scott was deployed in place of HMS Endurance, but the vessel neither had an icebreaker function nor capacity to carry Lynx helicopters.