Where's the style in pier's big sheds?

As in any other scheme, a profit must be made. Without a profit, there will never be enough money to keep a wonderfully-restored pier in first-class condition.

Then, terribly, we will watch history repeat itself as an underfunded and undermaintained pier inexorably declines towards closure.

For some years it has been known that to ensure there is an adequate fund to keep the pier going, a considerable area of extra floorspace would be needed, let out at an appropriate rent.

The pier as it stands simply does not have anywhere near enough floorspace to make enough revenue to cover the costs of keeping it in good condition.

Several years ago, Brighton and Hove Council, fully aware of this, co-operated with all the relevant parties and agreed to include the old children's paddling pool and the petanque terrain as a site for this extra floorspace.

The brief said apart from a handful of kiosks or stairwells, no part of the structure should rise above the pavement level of Kings Road.

The floorspace needed would demand that such a long, low building be partly built underground. That, of course, is expensive. But the costings were done and it worked.

These ideas were worked up by architect Tim Pickett with his colleague and well-known Brighton-lover, John Regan.

It was Tim, not developer St Modwen, who found out the deck would have to be raised by 1.5 metres to accommodate rising sea levels after talking to the Southampton Oceanographical Institute.

It was always assumed the uses of the development would be very different from those on the Palace Pier, comparing more to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco or Darling Harbour in Sydney.

I was privileged to witness the first presentation by KSS architects at Chris Eubank's elegant house some years ago and am thus very puzzled at the proposals that have now been presented.

Why do we not have a scheme which does not rise above the level of Kings road?

This begs he question of what is the point of saving Britain's only Grade I listed pier if some of the best views of it are going to be so soundly compromised?

Most of the buildings opposite the pier are listed and all are in a conservation area. It is the planning authority's duty to conserve or enhance a conservation area. Is this very long, low, unmodulated structure really appropriate for that setting? No, it is not.

The architects have done the right thing in selecting a style which obviously does not attempt to ape the mannerisms of such an elegant structure.

But if one is to follow this path, there must be obvious skill in dealing with the visual appearance of such adjoining buildings. It may be the photomontages are unkind but, quite simply, I do not like what I see.

Where I was expecting to see low, minimalist, shiny, clever architecture, oozing style, I see merely big sheds.

Dr Geoff Lockwood, speaking for the West Pier Trust, is right to say we are perilously close to the last chance motel.

But the proposals must be absolutely right. No, more than that, they have to absolutely brilliant. Eugenius Birch and the people of Brighton and Hove deserve no less.

Otherwise, the thoughtful people who are asking whether it is simply better to see the pier elegantly subside beneath the waves will sway the argument and we will never see the restoration that so many of us have yearned for, so deeply, for so long.

-Nimrod Ping, Regency Square, Brighton