The fire-ravaged Hastings Pier may never be rebuilt if fears it was not insured prove true.

Hastings Borough Council was pursuing a compulsory purchase order to take effect in June next year.

But its current owners, Panama-based Ravenclaw Investments, have not been in touch with the council for a number of years.

Council leader Jeremy Birch said he had "no idea" whether its "totally absentee owner" had insured the pier.

Only hours before the blaze, members of Hastings Pier and White Rock Trust had held a meeting on the progress which had been made to safeguard the structure.

The trust, which had campaigned for four years to secure the pier’s future, was planning on submitting a £7.5million Heritage Lottery grant application to help transform the pier into a 21st century attraction. A study this summer showed the pier could be made safe for £3 million.

But yesterday, they were forced to meet again with the council and emergency services to get a survey on its remains underway.

HPWRT trustee Jess Steele said it was bitterly ironic, but added: “The pier still has our banner on it saying: ‘You can save me.’ And that may still be true.

“We are working with the council and are asking for a structural survey to see whether the structure itself has been severely damaged.”

Council leader Jeremy Birch said the authority would support a full survey.

If the sub-structure is still salvageable, the cost of renovation could reach £50million, as happened after a blaze at the Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare Meanwhile, detectives have released two teenagers they were questioning over the blaze on bail.

The alarm was raised in the early hours of Tuesday morning by a member of the public who told two patrolling police officers that the pier, which has been closed since 2006, was alight.

At its height around 55 firefighters with eight engines were fighting to extinguish the blaze, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said. There were no reports of any injuries.