Time to ensure our piers have a future

12:12pm Wednesday 16th April 2008

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The story of British seaside piers can be summed up in one Sussex resort where they have been a feature for almost 200 years.

Brighton boasted the first pleasure pier. It then had what was by common consent the most beautiful pier of them all. It currently has the most popular pier.

Now it is at the heart of the national debate over what should happen to these marine playgrounds when there is no cash to restore them.

The Chain Pier was built when Brighton began its appeal as a mass resort in the 1820s. People enjoyed the novel experience of walking over the water.

They might, while doing so, meet anyone from King William IV and Queen Adelaide to their next door neighbours. When approaching the pier, they were conscious of viewing an object of real beauty, as well as a triumph of contemporary engineering.

But the Victorians were not as sentimental about conserving their creations as we are today and the Chain Pier was left to rot.

Many people in Brighton know it was destroyed in the great storm of 1896, causing a great deal of damage to other structures, including Volk's Railway, as it did so.

What is less well known is that by this time the Chain Pier had already been abandoned and work had started on building its successor, the Palace Pier.

Meanwhile, the West Pier had been open for more than 30 years although it did not attain its final and splendid form until the concert hall was added as late as 1916.

It was designed by Eugenius Birch, surely the greatest pier builder of them all. He was responsible for 14 dotted all around Britain, including those at Eastbourne and Hastings.

For good measure, he also designed the Aquarium in Brighton which back in 1872 was the largest in the world.

The West Pier, which received more than two million paying visitors in its heyday, was dealt two blows from which it never really recovered. One was damage during the Second World War and the other was neglect afterwards.

It was a tribute to Birch that the pier survived more or less intact after its closure in 1975 for almost 30 years until two bouts of storm damage and two arson attacks finished any hope of restoring it.

The Palace Pier, run by a small company, managed to avoid a similar fate thanks to the Noble Organisation which took it over in 1984.

Noble made the pier more inviting and accessible by abolishing tolls, lighting it properly and opening it much later in the evening.

The company also spent big money on maintenance but it all came at a price. The old pier theatre disappeared in mysterious circumstances, only to be replaced by remarkably ugly rides on an enlarged pier head.

Noble also managed to annoy many local people by renaming it Brighton Pier although most of us doggedly stick with the old name.

The Palace Pier looks set to prosper for many more years. The piers at Eastbourne and Worthing, although much more modest, also appear to be in good condition.

But there have been many casualties over the years among other seaside piers which nearly all dated from the Victorian area.

The most notable in Sussex was one at St Leonard's, designed by St George Moore who also conceived the Palace Pier. Built in 1891, it lasted barely 60 years thanks to accidents and incidents.

Now it seems a similar fate may befall the surviving pier at neighbouring Hastings which, like the resort itself, is in a sorry state.

Although cluttered and bearing little resemblance to Birch's original pier of 1872, it is still well worth saving but the signs are not good and creeping closure may presage its doom.

Bognor Pier was split in two by a great gale in 1965 and never really recovered from that. Its greatest attraction has been the annual Birdman rally which attracts huge crowds. Following a more recent collapse even that will not be held this summer and the pier's whole future must be in some doubt.

As for the West Pier, hopes of restoring that disappeared in piles of twisted metal and acrid smoke after the twin collapses and arson attacks.

But before the final fire five years ago, the pier could easily have been saved. That it was not reflects a sorry story of timidity, procrastination and lack of vision involving Brighton council and English Heritage among others.

So much misfortune has befallen this once magnificent pier that it would be tempting to believe it is fated. Even the latest plan for a Brighton Eye observation tower at the shore end has been delayed by a year and work has not yet started.

But I believe that if something worthwhile can be built on that historic site even it does not eventually include much if any of Birch's original design.

It's easy for us to regard piers as quaint and old-fashioned because they are all elderly and many are decrepit.

But in their day, piers were at the cutting edge of technology. Balancing wooden buildings on cast iron pillars in the tumultuous waters of the English Channel was no mean engineering achievement.

Modern methods could be used to build a West Pier suitable for the 21st century. Eminent architects of the kind who have shown interest in the Marina and King Alfred Leisure Centre could be asked for their ideas.

I hasten to add that we are not talking about tower blocks in the sea but fantastic forms of metal or fibre glass to house elegant leisure pavilions.

Plans for at least one such pier have been produced and looked great. A similar vision was also proposed for a new pier at Bognor.

Hastings Pier is almost intact and should be capable of rescue with a combination of heritage grants and private investment.

But some of the buildings dumped on its deck over the years are of extremely poor quality and could be replaced with sympathetic modern structures.

I would not be adverse to more new piers being built around the coast to replace those which were lost or never properly started.

There were once plans for a pier in Hove and a new one near Hove Street would take a lot of pressure off the King Alfred scheme nearby.

And how about a pier in Bexhill to complement the recently restored De La Warr Pavilion?

No other country in the world has anything like our collection of piers. They are a unique adornment to the seaside.

At least two dozen of them deserve to thrive rather than survive and should be prime candidates for grant aid from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

But there is also scope for a new wave of pier building so that today's top engineers and designers can show off their talents in the same way as Birch did all those years ago.

Let's see a start in Sussex.