The jackup construction barge on the east side of the pier.

Jackup barge comes to pier’s assistance

Storm damage to Hastings pier has necessitated the assistance of a jackup construction barge to assist with preparing for the removal of the ballroom at the end of the pier. Hastings Pier Charity CEO Simon Opie has provided HOT’s Nick Terdre with an update.

The ballroom structure and some of the pier’s supporting columns were damaged by the same storm, on 4 February, that caused widespread mayhem in Devon and Cornwall, and put the Dawlish railway line out of action, Simon says. It meant that before the ruined structure could be demolished and removed, it had to be made safe, and the role of the jackup barge, which arrived on 19 September, is to secure it with its crane while the make-safe work is performed.

“The barge is securing the remaining ballroom structure so that it’s safe to work underneath it, and then to enable us to replace a number of columns that were taken out by the storm,” Simon says. “Originally we were using all the supporting columns and they were in good shape, but the storm obviously caused an extensive amount of damage.”

As a structure sticking out into the sea, a pier is always exposed to the vagaries of the weather. “Once we’ve got the whole structure secure, what we’re building will be a lot more robust in terms of its ability to resist storms,” Simon says, “But nevertheless the pier will always be vulnerable to those extraordinary weather events.”

Meanwhile the storm damage repairs are going really well, he reports. The barge is an expensive bit of kit, costing £13,000 a day, so the work is going on 24 hours a day. But it is weather-dependent – it has to stop for high winds, and for bad weather such as the electric storms that were forecast a couple of weeks ago. A severe storm is also forecast for early next week, which may interrupt the work. Otherwise the barge is expected to stay for about another 10 days.

Still on track

“We still think we’re on course to open the pier next summer but the next three months are going to be challenging,” Simon says. “We’re giving it 100% and more of the necessary effort required, I don’t think we could ask more of the people who are working on it. I would say we’ll be in a position by the end of this calendar year to know fairly accurately where things stand.”

Some of the work is also tide-dependent, such as work done from the beach on the supporting columns. Recently there was a complaint from a nearby resident who was wakened at 5am one morning by the noise coming from the pier. “It’s unfortunate, we don’t want to disturb our neighbours more than is necessary,” Simon says. “But normal working hours on the pier are very much determined by the tides, and some aspects of the work have to be done at low tide, it’s the only time we can access the structure.

“It’s always our intention to keep any disruption to a minimum, but unfortunately there are some processes that, if there’s a low tide at 5 in the morning, we have to take advantage of it.” Although the work on the ballroom is going on through the night, because of its distance from the land, it has not been a source of noise nuisance.

When the sale of community shares in the pier closed in early April, it had raised £600,000, not only well above the minimum £200,000 target but even exceeding the £500,000 that was the upper target. The extra funds will strengthen HPC’s hand in giving the pier a viable future. “The first £200,000 was always earmarked for the project, so it leaves us with £400,000 in hand to put into commercial activities that will help the pier be sustainable in the long term,” Simon says.

“We’re not going to rush into decisions as to what we’re going to do with that, but it does mean that the menu of options that is open to us is better than it would otherwise have been, which is great news.” When the decisions have been made, they will be communicated to the shareholders. “We have a very real sense of responsibility to report back to our shareholders on how we might think of spending that money,” Simon says.

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