A Weston-super-Mare company interested in buying Hastings Pier has said that the cost of repairing and restoring the structure is too high.
Kerry and Michelle Michael, of Grand Pier Limited, Weston, had made a number of visits to Hastings, recently bringing with them a team of experts who are currently helping them to rebuild the Pier in the Somerset seaside resort.
However, their engineers believe that the cost of simply repairing Hastings Pier is now over £24m, with a similar amount required to provide new facilities.
Kerry explained:
"I'm afraid we cannot make a commercial case for the restoration of the Pier and in the absence of substantial 'outside funds' such as lottery monies etc, I cannot see a future for the structure at all.
"It would appear that the Pier is deteriorating much faster than we thought and in the opinion of our structural engineers, is in danger of imminent collapse. Their comments were that it is 'one good storm away from collapse'.
"I'm very sorry that our news is not better but the restoration of the Pier is a vast undertaking and we would have to be definite about its viability before we did anything and I'm afraid that doesn't look likely."
Kevin Boorman, of Hastings Borough Council, said:
"I am not really surprised at this news, it confirms what our own engineers have been saying for some time now. According to these figures, we're talking about a figure of almost £50m being required to turn the pier into a viable attraction, which is a huge sum of money.
"And it does mean that some serious questions will need to be asked over the future of the structure which, of course, is not owned by the Council but by Panamanian-registered Ravenclaw, who have not returned our calls for some time. We have literally only just received the report, and clearly will need to consider what happens next."
Residents are being urged to comment on the Stade improvement plans before the deadline of next Friday (27 November).
Kevin Boorman, Hastings Borough Council's Head of Communications and Marketing, explained:
"We extended the deadline for comments because one or two people said that they could not find the details of the plans on the website.
"The deadline for comment is Friday 27 November, and all comments received by then will be forwarded to the Planning Committee considering the applications, which meets on Wednesday 09 December.
"At the exhibition in the Fishermen's Museum, the majority of people who came into the exhibition were definitely in favour, although that wasn't reflected in the forms that were completed - we had 69 objections to the Jerwood Gallery, 30 objections to the new open space, café and community facilities, and 45 letters of support.
"Save Our Stade on their own admission were taking handfuls of forms and asking people to comment outside the exhibition, then returning those forms. It seems very odd that those people were commenting on the plans without even coming in to see the exhibition, they seemed to have already made up their minds beforehand.
"I would urge anyone who wants to comment to look at the plans and then do so, it's important that everyone's voice is heard.
"As well as being on our website the plans can be inspected at Aquila House during office hours Monday to Friday, and at Hastings Information Centre."
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This page last updated: 18/11/2009