Lottery funding is progressing a project to preserve and memorialise a former kosher butcher's shop in Liverpool which supplied the Titanic.

Since Galkoff's closed in 1979, after serving the Merseyside community for 72 years, its distinctive green-tiled frontage has remained a prominent local feature, considered of historic importance by English Heritage.

Now the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine - which purchased the site in 2009 - and the Museum of Liverpool have received £52,400 for the first stage of a scheme to remove the shopfront and install it as a museum exhibit.

According to the museum, the money will go towards research, after which a further application will be made for Lottery funding towards the re-siting.

"Exploration of both the beautiful frontage of Galkoff's and the remains of court housing at the rear will unlock fascinating information about the people who lived in and around the area," said Janet Dugdale, the museum's director.

It will unlock fascinating information

"We are particularly interested in working with people from Liverpool's Jewish community and local historians."

Jeremy Wolfson - a local Jewish councillor who has campaigned for the shop's preservation - is "delighted" by developments.

"It means a lot that this has been taken seriously and they have recognised how important the shop is to the local Jewish community," he said.

Councillor Wolfson hopes for a large turnout at a public consultation in September.