That sucks. Victorian architecture is hard to rebuild --you just can't get the craftsmanship these days...
Nothing, only a 1/3rd of it ended up burning down. The man on the TV last night was confident it will be rebuilt ready for next summer! I am not so convinced. I'm glad it didn't go the way the west pier went here in Brighton. Which still stands as a skeleton,and has done I think for most of my life, well in various states of disrepair, I don't think it's ever been a working pier in my lifetime.
its about 1/2 that's gone - but (and critically) the decking was saved ; BIG RUMOUR is the owner is throwing money at getting it reopened (at least the tea room and nightclub) within 2 weeks.
argh - found a drone cam video: http://vimeo.com/102174078 the decking is gone as is the arcade - the shops on fire in the video were lost , but that's where the fire stopped.
Classy. What I don't understand is why this happens. Piers are over rather large bodies of water, so why don't they have a fire-fighting system that simply sucks up sea water from underneath and dumps it in to the buildings at a rapid rate of knots? Surely it's cheaper doing that than rebuilding the whole thing or abandoning it, as piers seem to have this innate ability to catch fire...
I think it's probably more than likely to do with the fact that they are nearly always listed buildings due to their age and construction. Being listed often means you can't do stuff, even stuff that might be quite prudent to have done.
Yep, this is also what makes things like most barn conversions so hard. There are so many extra regulations and supposed difficulties surrounding older buildings that it's hard to do an awful lot with them at the end of the day, even if they were beneficial.
Risk/Consequence/Cost You don't really want to drown a pier in salt water. Most of the money is probably in the stuff being housed on the pier instead of the pier and buildings itself. A really old pier has a relatively low value as long as it stands. The rebuilding and maintenance part is what makes it expensive.
Boy, that escalated quickly. Good video. Nexxo, in case you haven't seen it already, this would undoubtedly interest you: Lost Victorian Britain
There's still a lot of pretty great victorian buildings in Wigan. It's just that nobody looks up anymore...
the video was actually taken by a friend of my sons, she put it on her FB , and has now taken it to the police. edit: as you can see - the firefighters are trying to get hoses into the wall before the flames are shown - they arrived on site very quickly after the alarm was raised.
