Golden future? Hastings Pier listed for sale months after winning UK's top architecture award

Six buildings went head-to-head to win RIBA's top architectural prize last year, but Hastings Pier is now for sale after the charity behind its refurbishment went into administration

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Meghann Murdock, Deputy editor, Homes & Property|Kristy Gray1 March 2018

Historic Hastings Pier has been listed for sale, less than four months after winning Britain's top architecture award.

Nicknamed "The People's Pier" after a community-led project inspired a £14.2million restoration after a fire in 2010 devastated most of the deck and buildings, the Victorian structure was awarded the Stirling Prize for the UK's best building by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Hastings Pier Charity, which was behind the dRMM-designed renovation of the pier on the East Sussex coast, went into administration in November last year.

Now, the pier has been put on the market — without a published asking price — in an attempt to find its next custodian.

Hastings Pier in East Sussex perches over the Channel

Francesco Montaguti

"Hastings Pier is unique in what it is, it's a blank canvas without a prescribed end use, so it's hard to price specifically," says Richard Baldwin, of GVA property agents which are acting on behalf of the administrators.

"We're looking for a long-term owner, who has the vision and entrepreneurial spirit to deal with unusual assets of this nature."

Sheikh Abid Gulzar, who bought Eastbourne Pier in 2015 and famously painted part of it gold, has expressed an interest in the pier.

Speaking to the Eastbourne Herald Sheikh Abid Gulzar said, “I am 100 per cent serious about Hastings Pier [...] I want to bring the pier to life. Of course I would like a gold theme, but there’s nothing wrong with that."

A global RIBA design competition to reimagine the structure was won by London-based architects dRMM after the fire.

Writing for Homes & Property last year, Sadie Morgan, of dRMM, said the pier rose "phoenix-like, from its all too real ashes, thanks in large part to local craft and ingenuity".

Hastings Pier Charity found 3,000 shareholders to buy a stake in the project, raising £590,000 of the £14.2 million cost, with the rest coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

RIBA president Ben Derbyshire described the pier as “a masterpiece of regeneration and inspiration".

"The architects and local community have transformed a neglected wreck into a stunning, flexible new pier to delight and inspire visitors and local people," he says.

Hastings Pier emerged as the winner among a strong a shortlist of entries, including a block of flats made from "fairytale materials" in a conservation area in east London, the British Museum's new underground exhibition space in central London and the redevelopment of the visitor centre at Chatham Historic Dockyard.