Property advisers to review options for Birnbeck Pier in Weston

Birnbeck Pier has been closed to the public since 1994 and is included on English Heritage's "buildings at risk" register

A property adviser has been brought in to "review all options" to renovate a derelict Victorian pier in Somerset.

Birnbeck Pier in Weston-super-Mare closed in 1994 and is now on English Heritage's Buildings At Risk register.

Wahid Samady, from CNM Estates which is in the process of buying the pier, said the team's brief was to "come up with a solution" of how it can be developed.

Charles McCann, from The Friends of the Old Pier Society, said to secure public funding a trust needs to be "in place".

The dilapidated pier, the only British pier which links the mainland to an island, was bought by developer Urban Splash in 2006 with plans to develop a new hotel and apartments.

Within six years, CNM Estates was negotiating to buy the 400m (440yd) structure, and restore it to create a hotel, homes and shops.

The RNLI left a base at the end of the pier after it was decided it was too dangerous for crews to cross

"The question is not who regenerates it but what the solutions are," said Mr Samady, who has appointed property adviser Colliers International.

"If I'm the obstacle then I'll stand out the way, but I want to know who to hand it over to and if I do hand it over - I want to know that they can deliver it."

In the meantime, the Grade-II listed structure has become a "total wreck" and is so unsafe the RNLI only use it when someone's life is in danger, according to Mr McCann.

"At the end of the day, the current owner needs to sell the site to a trust for a nominal fee or make the trust a stake holder so it can apply for public funding," he said.

The pier is one of the oldest in the country and the only one in joined to an island