CHRIS Eubank has launched a last-minute rescue bid to restore Brighton's historic West Pier.

The former boxing champion has joined forces with a new private consortium and is pledging to start work by the spring.

The dramatic news comes as the Heritage Lottery Fund today announced it was finally granting a long-awaited £440,500 handout for urgent repairs.

Campaigners fighting to save the landmark have been calling for emergency cash since before it was left badly battered by recent winter storms.

Lottery bosses earmarked £14 million for the pier last year but complex negotiations meant the restoration never kicked off.

And the private sector partners chosen to steer the project, Brighton Pier Resorts, later pulled out after their plans for a shoreline building were rejected by English Heritage.

Now the troubled scheme has been saved by Eubank, who fell in love with the Grade I listed structure while on his daily training runs ten years ago.

Last night Eubank, in London for the annual Brit Awards ceremony, told the Argus: "I'm over the moon that my consortium will now be the ones to put the pier back to its former glory.

"It's our heritage and I'm going to make sure that it's every bit as classy as when it was built.

"The pier will have a theatre on it and all the other things it had when it was originally built.

"This is for everyone to enjoy. We can now have this beautiful piece of architecture back with access for the public."

Eubank declined to name the other members of his consortium, saying: "Right now, they do not want to have any publicity. They are not publicity-driven.

"They are men of industry, and they back me regarding this and want me to be at the forefront."

The last major work carried out on the pier was £1 million of emergency repairs two years ago.

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