North Somerset Council to vote on future of Birnbeck Pier restoration after RNLI pull out
The RNLI, which had planned to put £5.5m into the project, pulled out at the end of June over viability concerns
North Somerset Council is set to vote to cancel the project to restore Birnbeck Pier after the RNLI pulled out of the project.
Restoring Weston-super-Mare’s dilapidated Victorian pier has been the council’s flagship regeneration project.
But the RNLI — which had planned to put £5.5m into the project in order to return its Weston-super-Mare lifeboat station to Birnbeck Island — pulled out at the end of June over viability concerns.
Now the council says it cannot afford the project and will vote to axe it at its meeting on September 16 — unless it receives major funding before then.
The council cabinet member responsible for the project, Mark Canniford, said: “Failing a new funding commitment coming forward in the next few days, it is with genuine regret and disappointment that the report going before full council will see the effective closure of the project to restore Birnbeck Pier for now. Simply put, we have been unable to fill the £5.5m funding gap left by the RNLI, so cannot move forward.”
The RNLI had played the most important role of all the partners who have been involved with the project. It was the lifeboat charity which gave the council the £400k to buy the pier in 2023. It had planned to turn the ruined pavilion on Birnbeck Island into a new state of the art lifeboat station, to allow it to launch from the island once again.
But the charity pulled out of the project in June, stating that it did not have confidence in the funding and contractual structure to deliver the project to completion or maintain the pier. At the time, council leader Mike Bell called it “a shocking decision that breaks faith with residents, volunteers and everyone who has worked so hard to secure a future for Birnbeck Pier.”
Councillors will be asked to vote to remove the project from the council’s capital programme at their meeting on September 16. Works underway on the landside of the pier, which have been funded by the Levelling Up Fund, will continue however. These include saving the historic pier master’s cottage and restoring it with a new cafe extension, which had been intended as a space for people to be able to watch the restoration work underway on the pier.
The council has submitted funding bids to the National Hertiage Lottery Fund — which has already put £10m into the project — and the government’s Mission Growth Fund to try and make up the shortfall left by the RNLI but no offer of funding has yet been received. The council said that it would update councillors if it received an offer of funding before vote to cancel the project on September 16.
Mr Canniford said: “Birnbeck Pier is a unique treasure: Grade II* Listed and the only pier in the country that links to an island. Our ambition to restore the pier remains undimmed but the current funding gap has slowed our immediate progress.
“Following the decision by RNLI headquarters to withdraw, we’ve continued to work hard in partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Historic England, to identify solutions to progress with the restoration of the pier structure. We have spoken directly to central government, had strong support from the local MP, Dan Aldridge, and other potential investment partners.”
But he said the council had not been able to fill the major funding gap. He added: “We’ll continue to seek solutions and hope to find an answer at some point in the future. The benefits of restoration are clear: new jobs and skills, stronger cultural and economic life in Weston, and pride in a heritage that belongs to us all.
“Delivering this restoration remains a transformative opportunity, and we must avoid further deterioration of such a nationally significant site. All the benefits are fully backed up by an independent business case report for the scheme and by the national heritage organisations who support us and the project.
“We know that councillors, officers, partners and members of our community have invested time, energy and emotion into this project over the years. Local people, including the Birnbeck Regeneration Trust and Friends of the Old Pier Society, have been hugely important to the campaign to save the pier.
“I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone involved for all that they have done. I’d particularly like to thank our project partners and contractors for their perseverance and flexibility while we’ve worked together to explore every avenue to fund and deliver this project. It is that passion that gives me confidence that Birnbeck will rise again.”