It has survived fires, bankruptcy and scandal, not to mention 153 years of lashing British weather, but now Hastings’ “peerless pier”, as it was hailed at its grand opening, faces a new twist in its turbulent tale: it is being put up for sale.
Ahead of a £150,000 fraud trial, the controversial current owner of the pier, the self-styled Sheikh Abid Gulzar, is planning to “dispose of” the landmark, the council says, sparking a rush to bring the Victorian structure back into public ownership.
