A 20-TON machine fitted with a giant pair of scissors was today helping demolish a 60ft section of storm-damaged Bognor pier.

The operation is expected to last three days.

The machine will cut through steel supports to remove part of the pier which was badly damaged last month when 80ft was swept away during vicious storms which battered the Sussex coast.

The contract to make the pier safe has been awarded to Littlehampton-based architectural steelwork company RS Fuller.

Company boss Bob Fuller was preparing to get cold and wet during the operation.

He will go into the sea to fix a steel hawser around part of the pier which collapsed so that it can be dragged out of the water.

He said: "I'm not looking forward to that bit but I don't think anyone else wants to do it."

Meanwhile, plans to bid for lottery cash to restore the pier are being drawn up and an appeal has been lodged with English Heritage against its refusal to add a star to the pier's Grade Two status as a listed building.

Paul Wells, of the Bognor Heritage

Project, which is campaigning to save the pier, said: "If we can raise the status of the pier it will help with the lottery bid.

"It is sad to see more of it disappearing, because it is part of our heritage."

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