A DESCENDANT of a Titanic survivor has joined the team aiming to build the doomed liner’s successor.

Philip Littlejohn, whose grandfather Alexander Littlejohn was a first class steward on board the ship, has joined the Titanic II’s advisory board.

An expert on the vessel, who has toured the UK and abroad lecturing about the Titanic, he will lend his voice to plans to build the new vessel.

Construction work is expected to start next year, with Australian billionaire Professor Clive Palmer hopeful the Titanic II will set sail from Southampton in 2016.

The new vessel, which will be built in a shipyard in China, will be an exact replica of the original Titanic, which sunk on its maiden voyage in 1912, having hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.

More than 1,500 people – 550 of whom were from Southampton – perished in the disaster.