Pier saved with £12m Lotto cash set to be sold to tycoon for less than £100k
A SEASIDE pier is set to be ‘flogged off for a song’ to a controversial entrepreneur just six years after it was saved for the nation with a £12million lottery grant.
Hastings Pier is expected to be sold for less than £100,000 to tycoon Sheikh Abid Gulzar, who has been nicknamed Goldfinger for his love of gold.
The East Sussex pier has been a popular tourist attraction on the South Coast since it opened to the public in 1872.
After it was badly damaged by fire in 2010, campaigners secured a £12.4million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Reconstruction started in 2012 and last year it won the coveted Royal Institute of British Architects’ Stirling Prize for Britain’s best new building.
But after the seaside attraction ran into financial difficulties, it is to be sold at a knock-down price to a private developer.
Sheikh Gulzar, 72, has refused to comment, but just a week ago he registered a new company called Hastings Pier Limited under his name. Indian-born Mr Gulzar, who drives a gold Mercedes, has owned the more traditional Eastbourne Pier 18 miles away since 2015.
He angered residents, conservationists and historians by painting Eastbourne Pier’s traditional domes and pinnacles in his trademark gold, along with lion motifs on nearly 50 lampposts.
He courted further controversy by banning dog walkers, fishing and picnics and threatening to introduce a £2 entrance fee. Campaigners criticised the deal to sell Hastings Pier to a private entrepreneur, and want to see it kept in public ownership. Dan Matthews, its events coordinator, said: ‘It is shocking that this iconic pier, which was the recipient of so much public money, is going to be flogged off on the cheap like this. It is a travesty. ‘It’s a national disgrace. There is a plan just waiting in the wings which would keep the pier in public ownership.’ During its 145-year history, the pier has burned down twice, served as a landing site for refugees during the Second World War, and hosted concerts by the Rolling Stones, The Who and Jimi Hendrix. But the Hastings Pier Charity, which employs 44, went into administration last year.
Administrators want to sell the pier as a viable business and have been holding talks with prospective buyers. But the Friends of Hastings Pier (FOHP) group wants to keep it in public ownership and has raised £434,255 of a £500,000 target to keep it going.
It says the pier should not be sold off to the highest bidder.
Spokesman James Chang added: ‘We can maintain the future of the pier with this so we don’t understand why this decision is being taken. We want a say in its future. It is wrong for it to be sold to an entrepreneur to profit from.’
Another campaigner said: ‘Hastings Pier is part of our Victorian seaside heritage and it shouldn’t be flogged off for a song.’
News of the sale led to a protest at the pier on Wednesday, when hundreds of people turned out. The Heritage Lottery Fund said the pier’s future lay with administrator Smith Williamson, which said it would release news soon.