Abid Gulzar, the controversial entrepreneur owner of Hastings Pier, has announced plans to sell the Grade II-listed attraction seven years after first taking it on. The Friends of Hastings Pier have invited by the council to submit a bid to bring the attraction under community control. Although that turned out to be a major disaster last time they tried that option.
Abid Gulzar has announced he is looking to sell Hastings Pier, seven years after acquiring the Grade II-listed attraction in a £60,000 private purchase agreement which left local residents “deeply angry.”
The entrepreneur and self-styled ‘Sheik’ took control of the local landmark in June 2018, but found it difficult to win the local community over. In addition, efforts to ensure a prosperous economic model for the pier were also hard to find – the pier had been cleared of any revenue generating opportunities prior to Gulzar’s purchase, and his attempts to drive income met with conntinuous local objections.
Now, with Gulzar announcing plans “to dispose” of the landmark, the the pier is being drawn back to the possibility of community control.
Unfortunately, that model didn’t go too well either. Back in 2017 the charitable trust running Hastings Pier literally ran the attraction into adminstration and it went bust forcing the administrators to seek a buyer.
The story hasn’t proven much better for Abid Gulzar.
“I tried my hardest and put all my love and money into the pier and have decided at my age of 81 to let someone else take it on,” said Gulzar.
The pier was nominated by the Friends of Hastings Pier as an Asset of Community Value in 2019, and Hastings Borough Council has confirmed official notice of the intended sale.
“Following formal notification to the council by Sheikh Abid Gulzar of his intention to dispose of Hastings Pier, Hastings Borough Council has informed the community group that nominated the pier,” said a spokesperson. “We are awaiting confirmation whether they are interested in bidding for the pier. We are unable to comment further.”
In response to the invitation to express interest, the Friends of Hastings Pier said: “Bringing the pier back under community control, management and ownership was always a key part of our constitution which is why we worked hard to get it recognised by HBC as a valuable asset to our town.”
“Our next steps will be to submit an expression of interest so that the full six-month moratorium takes effect during which time we will work to restore community control of the pier.”
The group has a six-week window in which to express interest, which closes on 26 November, and has already received the “full support” of Hastings and Rye MP, Helena Dollimore.
Speaking to Sussex Express, Dollimore said the town was still “deeply angry” about the sale process in 2018, when Gulzar was favoured over the Friends of Hastings Pier despite the group raising £470,000 of a £500,000 target.
Then leader of HBC, Peter Chowney, said he was “disappointed and angry,” at the decision, and this week Dollimore urged Gulzar to “work with the people of Hastings” on the progress of the current sale.
The battle of Hastings
Abid Gulzar said… “I tried my hardest and put all my love and money into the pier and have decided at my age of 81 to let someone else take it on…
We can work it out?
So, the local council is desperate for Abid Gulzar and the local community to work together in the change of the guard at Hastings Pier. If indeed that does happen, it would be one of the few times that the community and Gulzar have managed to work with one another in the past seven years. The reason for that is based on a fundamental difference over the direction of the pier: Gulzar wanted a commercial model, the community wanted a non-profit one.
Gulzar certainly didn’t win that argument, but then neither did the locals when the iconic attraction was last in their hands during the Friends of Hastings Pier tenure.In 2017, the Friends failed to meet the annual costs of running the pier, wracked up debts, fell into liquidation and some 3,000 local people, who bought into the pier project, lost their money.
It’s so easy to slag off the owners, until of course you find out how tough it is when you actually take ownership of it yourselves.
Once described as the plank for its stark appearance and lack of facilities, the award winning attraction was courted by a number of pier operators prior to Gulzar’s acquisition.
But, with the UK going into economic freefall, the hospitality industry facing crippling rising costs, and the price of maintaining seaside attractions becoming ever more expensive, Hastings Pier is coming up for grabs at a very tough time. Who knows whether they’d be interested in it again?
But let’s see how the community deals with these pressures. Unlike any of the locals in Gulzar’s term, everyone wants the new pier management to succeed. But it’s a tough gig even for those that know pier operations, and for those that don’t, you will find out the hard way.
Sadly, over the last decade, Hastings got the pier it deserved; now, it has to make sure it gets the pier it needs. And that will require an amusements offering.
