The head of the trust trying to restore the West Pier in Brighton has insisted the structure's partial collapse has not harmed its plans.

The Brighton West Pier Trust hopes to see the Grade Ilisted pier brought back to its former glory.

Although £14.2 Lotto money has been sitting in the bank since 1996, campaigners, such as the Noble Organisation which owns the Palace Pier, argue it would provide "unfair competition".

Other groups have protested against overdevelopment of the seashore to fund the repairs.

The trust's chief executive Geoff Lockwood said he hoped the collapse on December 29 would act as a "wake-up call"

and remove the remaining technical and legal hurdles.

He said: "As with similar major national projects we have been frustrated by red tape - bureaucracy - and pink tape - lawyers - without a sufficient will to focus on the common heritage and public benefit of restoring a rapidlydeclining sea-based heritage asset.

"We have been overwhelmed by the supportive response since the partial collapse.

"That collapse does not negate our plans. Our plans are the last opportunity to achieve the restoration of the West Pier.

"It is now a matter of the various local and national authorities to either support those plans speedily or accept responsibility for allowing the West Pier to sink into the sea.

"I believe the partial collapse will act as a wake-up call to those authorities to clear all of the remaining technical and legal hurdles standing in the way of the restoration and to do so in the next few months."

He said the trust had received support from across Europe and America in the past week but also messages from those who thought the restoration should not proceed.

One writer queried if restoration could go ahead without the controversial developments on the shore which are holding up planning approval.

Mr Lockwood responded:

"The Heritage Lottery Fund will not provide 100 per cent funding for the restoration;

the Trust pressed it to do so in 1995-7.

"Even if it did, as independent consultants have validated, the restored pier would go into another cycle of decline in the absence of annual income from the enabling development to sustain its maintenance."

When asked if half of the pier could be restored and the rest allowed to sink, Mr Lockwood said: "A partial restoration would not attract heritage funds and would not create an enterprise capable of long-term financial viability - unless the landside development was much larger than that in our proposals."

The trust countered criticism that the work would now be more rebuild than restoration.

Dr Lockwood said the trust and its private sector partners St Modwen were still committed to restoring the pier to its Twenties heyday with as much original material as possible.

Some people have said a new, modern pier should be built.

Dr Lockwood said: "The proposals and funding package we have negotiated over the past seven years is available only for the restoration of the West Pier as a heritage asset."

Last week The Argus made a comparison with Clevedon Pier in Somerset, which was been funded without commercial development.

Dr Lockwood said: "We have followed with delight the successful restoration of this pier. However, it involved nothing like the scale of complexity and funding involved with the West Pier and it is not in the centre of a major city of tourism, culture and education."