The last chance

The West Pier Trust said the current scheme is the last chance for it to achieve its aim of a publicly-funded reconstruction.

If it fails, the trust would then be happy instead to see plans for a futuristic pier replacing the Grade I-listed building.

The pier has been hit by two fires and three collapses in the last 20 months.

The trust's hopes suffered a serious blow when the Heritage Lottery Fund refused to grant £15 million for an already-approved full restoration plan, including a land-end leisure complex.

This now seems doomed as the trust is pinning its hopes on a more modest scheme by English Heritage which involves restoring the structure to its original 1866 state, without a concert hall or pavilion.

Since the first partial collapse in December 2002, many have mooted different ideas for a modernised pier or to make the pier part of a larger sea-based structure.

Trust chief executive Geoff Lockwood said: "The object of the West Pier Trust is to restore the pier as a heritage asset. Within the next half-year we should know whether or not three decades of struggle will be successful.

"If the trust fails, or rather, if its opponents are successful, the way will be open for modern pier plans to be put forward.

"All of us in those circumstances would wish the site of the West Pier to be used for a 21st Century sea-based attraction."

Designer Wayne Hemingway, who lives in West Sussex, told The Argus last week:

"It would be nice if the West Pier could be a completely modern pier." He mentioned Southport's pier, on Merseyside, which now has a modern pavilion.

Dr Lockwood said: "We keep in touch with all pier developments in this country through the National Piers Society.

"The piece skated lightly over the key fact that Southport is in an area attracting British and European regeneration funds on a scale unknown in Sussex."

Author Anthony Seldon suggested the proposed new Brighton conference centre should be sea-based with the pier serving as a railway to it.

Dr Lockwood said: "Anthony knows I share the view Brighton and Hove should and will develop into the sea.

"However any such development will be of such a scale and cost that the restoration of the West Pier can be funded as part of it.

"The access route to, for example, Europe's primary and most secure conference centre, could be alongside the pier with the restored West Pier being an additional attraction."

"Given the visible decline in the physical state of the pier and the excruciating delays in obtaining agreement on its restoration, it is not surprising more people in Brighton and Hove are coming to favour the replacement of the West Pier by something modern: A structure as relevant to the 21st Century as the West Pier was to Victorian Brighton.

"There is no reason why these ideas cannot be implemented elsewhere on the Brighton and Hove seafront if the trust is successful in its object and if they can raise the necessary finances and support."

The trust is also working with developers wishing to include the restoration of the pier in a larger sea-based development but none is on a short timescale.

Dr Lockwood said the English Heritage proposal to restore the pier to its original 1866 condition was the last opportunity to repair and reconstruct the West Pier from public funding.

He said: "It is a disgraceful situation ten years after the prime minister John Major publicly cited the West Pier as a prime example of the purposes for which the National Lottery had been created.