Weston Super Mare pier

[Aperitif]

...is completely gutted by fire.
I have watched the reportage from Sky News - what a disaster.
I hope families and the business of holidaymaking are able to deal with this sad event.

 

[surfgurl]

My husband just woke me up to see this on the telly, we live in the next town down the coast. I'm really upset.

 

[sheddy]

Weston Super Night Mare

 

[surfgurl]

I've just been to the seafront in our town. I can't see a column of smoke coming up from it, but the only grey cloud in the sky is above Weston.

 

[Melvil]

Piers are wonderful things, symbols of Britain, really. It's a real shame. I just hope it wasn't arson.

 

[mickle]

I feel no great sense of loss, it was nothing more than a tacky arcade. The other older 'pier' like thing further up the coast has been derelict for decades, now that's a scandal. Interested to know how an open plan,steel structured building full of metal boxes could catch fire so comprehensively.

 

[HLaB]

...is completely gutted by fire.
I have watched the reportage from Sky News - what a disaster.
I hope families and the business of holidaymaking are able to deal with this sad event.

Typical BBC news, twenty minutes after your post the BBC reported it as breaking in news but yet they had no pictures but a passer by I think on the phone.

 

[ChrisKH]

A great pity. Piers are what make some of our seaside towns. Same fate as the one at Southend.

 

[spindrift]

Huge fire:















http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/7528165.stm

 

[Keith Oates]

It really is a shame, in todays market it's not likely to be rebuilt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Mortiroloboy]

A sad day indeed, as others have said Piers are what makes the great British holiday resort. I stand to be corrected, but this may just make Weston the only seaside town in Britain with two derelict piers the other one which can be seen from Brean Down, (our kids always used to call it the haunted pier), it does have a slightly Tim Burton appearance about it.

 

[Chris James]

Interested to know how an open plan,steel structured building full of metal boxes could catch fire so comprehensively.

Presumably it was the large wooden building at the end of it and the quarter of a mile of wooden planks laid on top of the metalwork that actually caught fire. There is a funfair at the end of it so presumably plenty of opportunity for ignition sources to exist.

Birnbeck Pier is very nice to look at (or would be if they did it up) but is out of the way past Knightstone harbour and nowhere near the beach, other amusements and cafes so presumably it doesn't make a great ecomonic case for being done up.

 

[surfgurl]

It had been taken over by new owners earlier this year and they had just finished the renovations to it. They had built a new go cart track and funfair stuff.
From the pictures I've seen the building at the end is totally destroyed, but the main walkway seems pretty intact.
The owners are local business people with quite a bit of money. They own several big businesses in Bristol and Weston. Lets hope the main metal structure underneath is ok and that it can be rebuilt.

 

[Fnaar]

It's the end of the pier show... sadly...
Little & Large notwithstanding, I love piers. Sad to see this one burning.

 

[girofan]

Piers are wonderful things, symbols of Britain, really. It's a real shame. I just hope it wasn't arson.

I wonder if the owner was making a profit, know what I mean?