Protest to keep Hastings Pier in community ownership

Local campaigners have raised more than £430,000 to keep the pier from private hands

Supporters of Hastings Pier are holding a protest amid rumours the structure is being sold to Eastbourne Pier's owner.

BBC South East understands that local businessman Sheikh Abid Gulzar will take ownership of the pier this week.

Hastings Pier Charity which ran the award-winning Grade II listed structure entered administration last November.

Local campaigners have raised more than £430,000 through crowdfunding and want more time to reach the £500,000 needed to keep it in community ownership.

Protest organiser Dan Matthews said the Friends of Hastings Pier was "poised and ready to put an amazing offer on the table".

"It will be a travesty if that's not properly reviewed and considered."

A charity rebuilt the pier but went into administration in November 2017

The pier, which originally opened in 1872, was rebuilt thanks to Heritage Lottery Funding following a devastating fire in 2010.

The 280m (919ft) long structure reopened to the public in April 2016.

In 2017 it won the RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture.

A spokesman for the administrators, Smith and Williamson, said a number of bids and expressions of interest had been received but he could not confirm anything about the sale of the pier.

Sheikh Gulzar has refused to comment, but BBC South East has seen that a company has been registered under his name called Hastings Pier Limited.