IT WAS the picture that made almost every front page as flames engulfed the famous old pier at Eastbourne.

Some reports said the pier had been destroyed and there was much talk of the summer season being wrecked for the resort.

But there’s little doubt that Eastbourne Pier will be restored sooner rather than later. It sits in one of Britain’s most successful seaside resorts.

Because of the council’s long standing policy to restrict most commercial activity near the seafront, it is in an absolutely prime position.

Only the building closest to the shore was damaged by fire. The rest of the structure out to sea was saved.

The burnt out building also rests on sand so that repairs can be carried out from the shore rather than using expensive divers.

Prime Minister David Cameron has praised the pier and swiftly promised £2 million towards its restoration.

It was the third time this century that fire had caused severe damage to a Sussex pier. The West Pier in Brighton, already a forlorn wreck, was torched by an arsonist in 2003.

That effectively ended all hope of restoring the Grade One listed building even though there was planning permission for it.

Hastings Pier was also badly damaged in 2010 but money originally destined for Brighton was switched to save it once a trust had been formed to supervise the operation. It could be open again as soon as next year.

All three piers were designed by Eugenius Birch and it is a tribute to him that they have lasted so long.

He built his piers to survive and when the authorities at Margate reluctantly decided the pier was not worth saving, it was a tough task to remove the remains. Even explosives could not shift them and they still exist.

Birch also designed the North Pier in Blackpool, by far the most handsome of the resort’s three piers. The total number of piers he built was 14.

For good measure, in 1872 he also dreamed up the Aquarium at Brighton, then the largest of its kind in the world.

Surprisingly little is known about Birch but he was a master pier builder and his work needs to be conserved wherever possible.

Britain is the only country that built piers in any number and there used to be more than 100 dotted around the coast.

Arson, neglect, war and storms have accounted for about half of them so that there are now only about 50 left.

They keep on making news and the public affection for them is immense as shown each time one suffers a misfortune.

The sad news about Eastbourne Pier came only a short time after a highly symbolic ceremony in Brighton on the landward site of the West Pier.

Work has started on building the i360 – which when completed in 2016 will be the tallest observation tower in Britain.

Some have called it a vertical pier and it will be as much of an innovation as Birch’s original pier almost 150 years ago.

There has been much carping about this tower and criticism of the financial arrangements involving security from public funds needed so that work could start. But all the big projects in Brighton that have contributed towards its success have relied on risk to some extent. It was once standard practice for councils to borrow so that they could build.

The i360 is the only project of seven on the seafront to have got under way after a wait of more than a decade.

Its designers are David Marks and Julia Barfield, the team responsible for the London Eye - currently the biggest visitor attraction in the capital.

Marks Barfield may have overestimated the pulling power of Brighton and Hove in the way that restaurateur Oliver Peyton appears to have done at The Dome where he has pulled out from a catering contract.

But Brighton is a hugely popular destination and the Palace Pier remains Britain’s most visited attraction in the South East.

It will be exciting to see the i360 being built and even more so to ride in the capsule to a point so high that people will be able to see over the South Downs.

The i360 should renovate the west side of Brighton, currently down on its luck, and give a welcome boost to Preston Street.

But the Brighton West Pier Trust, which has shown remarkable tenacity over the last 40 years, still has more work to do.

There is no hope of saving the sad remains of Birch’s pier, now an oddly beautiful but fragile mass of twisted girders some way out to sea.

But once the i360 is ready there is still the prospect of a new pier being built using modern materials and the best designers.

It could be another enormous attraction - a 21st century pier which could have other resorts copying Brighton once again.

Meanwhile at Eastbourne, the pier should have been restored by then to remind us all of how outstanding Eugenius Birch was.

Let’s hope this pier and all the others have proper sprinkler systems so that we no longer endure the agony of seeing a building surrounded by water going up in flames.