This story has a lot of questions attached, about money and selling to someone who has had other companies go bad, etc., but – “First, it’s worth asking why piers in general are so troublesome and troubled – for tales of burning, failing, closing piers, or of piers falling into questionable hands, or any news item enabling the headline “The End of the Pier Show”, have become part of the national story. There is the decades-long struggle to rescue the rusting remnants of the West Pier at Brighton, the dismantling of Colwyn Bay’s pier in 2018, the addition of Blackpool’s three piers to the World Monuments Watch list of buildings at risk, also in 2018. It’s also worth asking why Hastings in particular went wrong.” – The Observer (UK)