SOUTHEND Pier will reopen to the public tomorrow for the first time since it was ravaged by fire in October.
However, insurance and security demands mean access will be limited to 48 people walking or taking the train at any one time. Visitors will only be able to go along the first mile of the walkway.
The pierhead station was destroyed in the blaze so a temporary halt has been constructed to take the pier trains as close as possible to the area where the blaze took place. There will be a temporary viewing platform but visitors will not be allowed on the old pierhead, where cafes and shops were wrecked by the blaze. Nor will people be able to cross to the new pierhead, which houses the RNLI station. It is thought it will be two years before the whole of the pier is reopened.
Published Wednesday, November 30, 2005
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