Weston-Super-Mare pier burns down, gets rebuilt

What, like a cigarette butt?

Well, that's three out of four beach attractions gone.

Knightstone Pier - derelict for years
Tropicana - ditto
Weston Pier - now burnt down

So there's now just the Sea Life Centre which holds around 100 people at a time.

I live 8 miles away; can't see anything.

Try going outside and looking in the right direction?

Not to be facetious, but i wouldn't swim in that muck regardless. That water is estuary mud and filth.

Well I can see weston from my house, just no smoke. Perhaps they bought it under control.

Yeah, pretty much like Southend's. After the fire in 1976 you couldn't swim in the sea for weeks after in case you got whacked by a floorboard from the Pier

Latest pictures from BBC showed it pretty much burnt to a crisp and not much smoke

How sad, another pier gone.

It's always been dangerous to swim in the sea at Weston!

threads merged

really sad this. I had no idea the tropicana was closed too! I have fond memories of both

According to the radio report it basically disappeared in just an hour!

That quick??!! Thanks fuck it wasn't open at the time!!

Pretty much, I was watching more or less from start to finish.

lols etc.

Damn shame, I love a nice pier even more than I love a good fire.

but if people had to jump, would they have just landed in mud?

Something doesn't quite add up here in the official story.

The nearest fire station is only 1.2 miles away, yet the fire engines took 45 minutes to arrive. This seems to contradict the chief fire officer's account that they were there within "two shakes" of the original 999 call.

Even more mysterious is the fact that the police, fire brigade and coastguard were taking part in an emergency simulation exercise for just this kind of event when the tragedy occurred.

Now it may be that the whole thing was an inside job, planned down to the last detail to look "authentic". More likely, perhaps, that the police uncovered the plot during the planning stages and stood back to let it happen.

Either way, there's a lot more to this than meets the eye.

We have a right to know the truth.

It hasn't been there for donkey's years. I took my son a few years ago, with the intention of going there, it had gone.

Remember being laughed at by my posh classmates for raving about going to 'Weston Supermare' one summer.

Who says it took 45 minutes to arrive? There's no way it would take that long.

Not to be tactless but it is a shithole. I'm not happy about great big burning things (unless they contain Edward Woodward), but the Pier is a joke, though popular.

Quickest conspiracy theory ever?

Sign me up as a WSM Troofer!

Pfft. As a child, I thought it was awesome, especially all the classic arcade machines for 10p.

You'll be able to get them for 5p now.

They have just said on the radio that deep fat fryers were in the area where they think the fire started.

Where in the pier doesn't have a deep fat fryer. That place has more grease and chip fat per square inch than the entirety of Glasgow.

Are people eating fish and chips that early in the morning?

The tropicana has only been shut down for about 7-8 years. I was the first perosn in weston in there. Our primary school was practically opposite it and they let us in for asplash about pre-official opening. I was changed second then knocked over danny murphy just before he reachd the water. Victory was mine.

butchers new tagline "first in the tropicana" - I'd be proud of such an honour myself.

Maybe one had been left on over night.