Sheikh Abid Gulzar

has caused a stir in the sleepy seaside town of Eastbourne, says Rosie Kinchen in The Sunday Times. The 70-year-old entrepreneur wears diamond-encrusted rings the size of knuckledusters, drives a huge gold-painted Mercedes, and has scandalised locals with his gaudy restoration of Eastbourne Pier. Gulzar (the Sheikh is a family name, not an honorific) moved from India to Britain aged 19, and made his millions by building up a portfolio of small hotels. All are lavishly decorated with his favourite motifs: gold and lions. He even installed two giant concrete lions at the entrance to the Pevensey Levels, the nature reserve he owns in East Sussex. “When I put in lions, people said, why lions? I said, Trafalgar Square has lions, all British big homes in the countryside have lions. Why ask me, just because I’m a good-looking sheikh?” Last year, Gulzar bought Eastbourne Pier for a reported £1m, after it was ravaged by a fire in 2014. He has spent £800,000 so far restoring it – becoming, he proudly declares, “the biggest purchaser of anti-rust paint from the local Travis Perkins”. Parts of the pier have been painted gold (including the lion heads in the ironwork), to the alarm of conservationists. But Gulzar is unrepentant. This, he says, is his gift to the nation. “When I die, I will not be the owner of Sheikh’s Pier; the gold rings they talk about will be taken off. There is nothing permanent there, so let me pass on my good work.”