Sheikh Gulzar, owner of Hastings pier, emerged triumphant from a hearing before Brighton Magistrates last week after being cleared of unlawful possession of an eight-inch knife blade.

The 80-year-old had been stopped by a police patrol when driving a Ford van in the early hours of a Sunday morning in May 2025. He told officers that he needed medication, which was in the glove compartment of the vehicle. When the police searched for it there, they found the knife.

In an interview at the police station Gulzar explained that he had been fishing in his private lake at Pevensey that morning, and that the knife was used for cutting up fish. The van contained net poles, folding chairs and other equipment for his fishing expeditions.

He was charged with possessing a bladed article in a public place. But 16 months on, he was acquitted. District Judge Amanda Kelly told him: “I am just about persuaded that at the time you had a good reason for having that knife in your car.”

Gulzar faces another court trial in November, this time in Lewes Crown Court, on unrelated fraud charges in a private prosecution brought by water supplier Castle Water Limited.

He indicated last year that he was inviting bids for purchase of Hastings pier. However, the asset has been frozen as security by the court pending the trial.

Friends of Hastings Pier (FoHP), the group seeking return of the landmark asset to community ownership, have been told by owner Sheikh Gulzar that he wants £4m for it.

The Friends have posted on their Facebook page that this sum is “many multiple times the valuation figure” given to them by a real estate company that specialises in selling retail and leisure properties globally. If paid, it would represent a 6,500 per cent profit to the 80-year-old Mr Gulzar on the £60,000 price which he paid liquidators for the pier in 2018.

There is no apparent means of bringing his asking price down. Questions continue to be raised, however, as to whether the structure is being adequately maintained.

The pier is registered with Hastings Borough Council as an asset of community value. Following Mr Gulzar’s declaration last autumn that he wished to sell it, FoHP triggered a six-month moratorium under the Localism Act, which expired earlier this month.

During the moratorium Hastings & Rye MP Helena Dollimore organised a meeting with local councillors and community organisations to discuss “work[ing] together to protect the pier” as a community asset. She then called for Mr Gulzar to commission an independent survey detailing its current condition.

If he has responded to this directly, he hasn’t disclosed it. However, the strength and reliability of the substructure have been highlighted as an issue in a recent application lodged on Mr Gulzar’s behalf with Hastings Borough Council for retrospective planning and listed building consent. The application is for permission to retain sheds (or kiosks as he refers to them), seating area benches and the sauna unit already in place on the decking.

Structural engineers AP Sherlock Associates (APSA) have been engaged by Samphire Sauna, managers of the sauna, to demonstrate that the unit, including changing facility and office cabin, doesn’t overload the capacity of the structure to support it. Their report was followed by another from Andrew Waring Associates (AWA), another firm of structural engineers engaged by the Borough Council. The latter has identified various minor issues that need addressing in the substructure, concerning bracing, abrasion guards, columns and drainage pipes.

AWA concluded that none of these issues should lead to withholding of planning permission for structural reasons. But they do recommend that a condition be attached requiring the ongoing maintenance of the pier, given the likely deterioration of the structure “in an exposed marine environment”.

Critics have lodged objections on the planning file. In particular, campaigner Chris Hurrell has pointed out that while the APSA report claims that the structure is subject to an inspection every three months and to a rolling programme of truss and bracing replacement, there’s no evidence of this happening. The report itself expressly avoids comment on any maintenance process.

AWA had access only to the landward end of the pier where the sauna unit is located. Their inspection of the substructure seems to have been conducted from the beach when the tide was halfway in.

Ms Dollimore suggested last week to HIP that “there is quite a bit happening behind the scenes”, which she cannot divulge. The Friends say they “will continue to lobby to ensure the pier becomes the beacon of regeneration it was intended to be, and brings jobs and tourists to our town.”

In the meantime, even on a sunny spring weekend, the pier remains largely devoid of activity. The only hospitality offered between the long stretches of timber decking, besides the ragged sauna unit in one corner, are three scattered sheds which offer, variously, ice-cream, coffee or take-away snacks. Is that it for the summer ahead?

Following intended local government reorganisation, a future unitary council – whether it administers the whole of East Sussex or some other territory – will assume responsibility for the services currently performed by Hastings Borough Council (HBC): dealing with waste and recycling, street cleaning, housing, environmental health, planning, licensing etc. But what about the land, buildings and physical assets which the borough council owns?

As former HBC leader Peter Chowney points out in Our Town, Our Council on page 9, there are many industrial estates and retail parks owned by the council which bring in substantial income. On the other hand, current Deputy Leader Cllr Julia Hilton told the full meeting of councillors on 14 January that, whatever the future of the council, “one thing is clear that people really care about: what happens to local land assets, including community buildings, historic buildings, leisure centres, and our green spaces. Will these be a focus in a much larger and probably overstretched council to give true care and consideration to things like our parks and community spaces?”

Cllr Hilton went on to argue that the borough should protect its interest in these assets by taking steps to set up a town council that would survive the reorganisation. More sceptical onlookers might wonder how much care and consideration is currently being given by HBC to a number of these assets that seem to have been consigned to a deep freeze.

AZUR

The freehold of the Azur Marina Pavilion on St Leonards seafront is owned by HBC, with a long lease granted to Sea Change Sussex. Nearly £2 million of regeneration money was spent two decades ago building a restaurant and bar above the older sun lounge and café on the lower promenade, and turning the lounge into a conference centre and other function rooms. But three successive operating companies struggled to make it profitable, each failing to pay due rent to Sea Change. It was repossessed in January 2024, and has been left empty for the past two years.

Some needed roof repairs were carried out in 2024, and Sea Change reported in June of that year that up to 11 potential operators had expressed an interest in taking a fresh lease. At one point the agents instructed to market the premises, Fleurets, marked it on their website as “Sold subject to contract”. However, it emerged that there were more complex issues with the mains electrical supply which is shared with the wider Marina Foreshore complex administered by HBC, including the neighbouring sailing club, public toilets, workshop and car park. HBC agreed with UK Power Networks, the monopoly network operator, that the latter would lay a fresh cable under the street, and its spokesperson admits that it received the money to do this in March 2025. But it avoided undertaking excavation works “during the summer holidays season”, and although a new electrical kiosk was installed in October, enabling HBC to proceed with internal re-wiring, the new cable has still not been energised.

In the meantime, the fabric of the building is suffering from another winter of damp, rust and storm damage, both inside and out.

ST MARY IN THE CASTLE

The former church and arts venue has been empty since November 2022 when the previous leaseholder trust handed it back to HBC. Ambitious ideas to use Town Deal funds to develop it as a potential reception area to be linked with Hastings Castle by a lift or escalator were rejected. More recently, it has been added to Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register in the hope of attracting national rescue funding.

Two months ago – i.e. three years after it was vacated – HBC launched a formal Expression of Interest process “to identify a new partner, operator or consortium to take forward [its] revitalisation”.

Submissions closed on 15 December. It’s understood that one proposal is to turn the venue into a music resource centre with rehearsal and recording facilities. The council has not made any comment since then on what responses it has received in this process, though Deputy Leader Cllr Julia Hilton told the cabinet in January that the council would need to put money into a long-term strategy to save it.

THE OLD BATHING POOL, WEST ST LEONARDS

The site of the former bathing pool at West Marina, owned by HBC, was earmarked for a mix of housing and leisure use regeneration in the local plan of 2015. In October 2021 HBC granted a 250-year lease for this purpose to West Marina St Leonards Limited (WMSLL), a subsidiary of national developers County Gate Properties. Neither the council nor the developer has been willing to disclose the lease terms.

Following a lengthy period of ground surveys (assessing, among other things, the extent and quality of Southern Water tanks and pipes under the surface), WMSLL’s plans were exhibited as part of a pre-planning public consultation in April 2025. Detailed drawings and visual projections revealed their intention to build more than 150 new homes on the site. They have met vigorous opposition in the form of West St Leonards Neighbourhood Forum, local community activists who last year mounted a counter-exhibition proposing that the eastern end of the site be developed as a leisure destination with low buildings (if any), play and garden areas, and potential for a tidal pool or on-land lido.

No formal planning application has been forthcoming in the nine months since.

Assets Beyond the Council’s Remit

In fairness to HBC, however, there are plenty of other community and heritage assets of the town where needed development has also stalled or seems to be moving at a glacial pace. What might a Town Council do about these?

FORMER DEBENHAMS BUILDING

The building which formerly accommodated Debenhams at 1-3 Robertson Street in the town centre was bought in January 2020 by Moxie Management Two, a company owned by two sisters, Bella Landen and Sophie Hubble. It was dilapidated when they took it over, and renovated with the aid of public funds from the Town Deal. Part (over three floors) was – and remains – let to Freedom Works as office space; the rest, notoriously, to the ill-fated and short-lived Owens entertainments venture. Following the Owens collapse in September 2023, Moxie Management has indicated that it plans to sub-divide that part of the premises to accommodate a variety of commercial activities which may include retail and/or restaurant uses. A recent licence application was granted for a sports bar. Earlier this month Ms Landen told HIP that they “are exploring/working on a couple of potential opportunities for the site”. It seems improbable that any activity will be up and running there in the immediate future.

SUSSEX EXCHANGE

The Sussex Exchange was developed with public funds by Sea Change Sussex as a restaurant, bar, conference centre and restaurant centre on a 1.6-acre site off Queensway. It opened in 2012. Situated near the junction with the Combe Valley link road to Bexhill, it was aimed to serve other prospective regeneration developments in this hinterland area, but few of these have come to fruition. In July 2024 the operating company went bust owing large amounts of tax and rent. After remaining empty for a year, it was announced that it had been sold “to a local manufacturing company” on long lease, but there has been no indication of any commercial activity being conducted at the site over the last six months. A spokesperson for Sea Change told HIP this month that the new leaseholder “is expanding and seeking additional premises for research, development, training and conferencing purposes,” but is still declining to identify itself.

CLIFTON COURT

The block of 53 flats owned by housing association Orbit at the top corner of Cornwallis Gardens remains vacant more than four years after its tenants began to be decanted for prospective redevelopment. In the summer of 2024, it was briefly occupied by campaigners in the name of Housing Rebellion protesting at its being kept empty. A spokesperson for Orbit stated in April last year that demolition and rebuilding options were being discussed “in a working partnership with Hastings Borough Council”. Earlier this month another spokesperson insisted that Orbit is “committed to continuing to deliver new affordable homes across the Borough” and that it is “continuing to engage with the local authority to ensure delivery of as many affordable homes as possible to meet local housing needs and support the local authority’s housing strategy.” The council has offered no comment save that it “hasn’t seen any plans.”

HASTINGS PIER

As is well-known, this historic landmark was refurbished a decade ago with £14 million-plus of Heritage Lottery funds and local shareholder contributions, winning the RIBA Stirling Prize for best new building of 2017 (notwithstanding its 1872 substructure). It went bust the following year and was sold off by insolvency administrators Smith & Williamson to Eastbourne entrepreneur Sheikh Gulzar for all of £60,000. By way of justification, the administrators stated that out of the bids received, including from the community group Friends of Hastings Pier (FoHP), Mr Gulzar had demonstrated the best immediate finance capability: “It is anticipated that significant cash for working capital and investment purposes, amounting to over a million pounds, would be required to make the pier sustainable.”

In the seven and a half years since, no substantial investment has been forthcoming. Basic retail sheds were installed with temporary planning permission that has expired along with gold-painted décor that had none. Events have been limited to outdoor hospitality in summer, regularly falling foul both of licensing conditions and inclement weather. Maintenance of the substructure appears to have been minimal, the original engineers having been swiftly (and unlawfully) disengaged.

The pier has been registered by FoHP as an asset of community value and, when Mr Gulzar gave notice last October that he intended to put it up for sale, this triggered a six-month moratorium. MP Helena Dollimore claimed three months ago to have organised a meeting with local councillors and community organisations – “We are all united in our goal of ensuring that the pier is a valuable community asset for generations to come.” – but there has been little indication so far of any attempt to rally fresh public enthusiasm or raise public funds. Asked for a comment earlier this month, a spokesperson for FoHP said: “We are continuing to explore options.”

The news was announced to Instagram followers last Friday with a confident swagger – “After perhaps the longest and most depressing winter in known memory, the dream of a summer of socialising, dancing, events, live gigs, football & fun looks set to be a reality…We have plans to make [the three] years very memorable for all of us!”

PICTURE: Dave Young

Last year the management pair, operating under the banner of their  existing company Music First Events Limited, hosted a daily beer garden at the far end of the pier accompanied by a series of music events. They opened only in July and closed in September. For their extended return they have formed a new company, Hastings Pier Entertainments Limited, and it is clear that they mean to exercise full control across the length of the decking, including a fresh selection of caterers and other service providers. Gone, in any event, are the gold-painted stuffed animals and other exotica of the unlamented regime of Sheikh Gulzar. 

Mr Gulzar nevertheless remains owner and landlord. It has to be assumed that he will continue to be responsible for necessary repairs and maintenance of the structure beneath the decking, though there has been little evidence of this over the winter. 

PICTURE: Dave Young

The council explained its instruction to MFE to cancel its remaining programme by reference to the lack of social distancing among attenders at a music event at the previous weekend, 12th/13th September. A spokesperson said: “As a result of this, and the fact that infection rates have increased nationally and also to some extent across East Sussex, our environmental health team suggested that as a precaution the operators of the pier should reconsider the type of events they are staging, and how they are managed. The operators have responded positively to this suggestion, and have decided there will be no more live bands/DJs for the foreseeable future.”

First cancellation was of last Thursday’s HiddenBeach On The Pier gathering, due to be fronted by local DJ Remi Vibesman. A wholly ticketed eight-hour Queer on the Pier festival was allowed to go ahead two days later on the Saturday (19th September), presumably because the MFE were able to persuade the council that they had hired sufficient numbers of marshals to ensure that rigorous distancing controls would be maintained. 

But all subsequent events have been cancelled.

According to the council spokesperson, its environmental health team “continues to support businesses, including event organisers, to ensure they have access to and understand the guidance and how to operate safely according to it”. However, any application of rigid guidelines to outdoor gatherings on the pier arguably runs counter to scientific studies relied upon in the formulation of general government policy, which suggest that the risk of Covid-19 infection in well-ventilated outdoor environments is minimal. 

Jonathan Van-Tam, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, told the daily Downing Street briefing back in April that “there is a definite truism across all of the science literature that ventilation is a most critical part of reducing transmission from respiratory viruses”. Normal breezes and air currents appeared to quickly disperse any kind of plumes of breath exhaled, he said. 

Dr Chris Smith, clinical lecturer in virology at the University of Cambridge, previously told the BBC that the chances of Covid-19 transmission outside were “vanishingly small” because “the amount of dilution from fresh air is so high”.

No mainstream scientists in the field are known to have argued to the contrary. As for ventilation on the pier, enough said.

The Bier Garden on the pier will remain open until 4th October with slightly reduced hours: 1pm to 7.30pm Sunday to Thursday: 1pm to 10pm Fridays and Saturdays.

NB The pier will now close at 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays in line with the government regulation announced this week

Hastings Pier reopened its gates to the public last Monday with a new management team in place and, very obviously, a fresh outlook. Owner Sheikh Gulzar has given an events company, Music First Events, free rein to conduct business on the full length of the pier for the next three months, in whatever manner its directors James Tovey and Mustafa Abdelhadi see fit within such social distancing guidelines as may persist. 

The new management team are well aware of the troubles of the past three years – the financial failure of the community trust which had overseen the restoration of the award-winning structure with over £14m of National Lottery money; the controversial sale to Gulzar in June 2018; and the widespread criticism which he has attracted in the aftermath by his failure to plan or invest in its future since then.  They have declared, however, in an official statement posted last week on the pier’s Facebook page, that “ the reset button has been pressed and we need your support!”

The post continues: “We feel it’s time to forget the past and move forward positively.  With so many exciting plans to be revealed over the coming weeks, we are confident that we will be able to breathe life back into this beloved landmark.

“Our aim is to offer the space back to the local community. If you have a group that needs space – contact us. If you have a passion you wish to share with the world – contact us. If you need a platform to showcase your talent – contact us!”

PICTURE: Dave Young

Previous incarnation

Both Tovey and Abdelhadi were raised in Hastings, and have experience of the pier’s previous incarnation as music venue – they were both involved in promoting electronic dance events in its former ballroom in the 1990s before going separate ways. Tovey went on to forge an early career as operations manager of a succession of nightclubs in Tunbridge Wells; Abdelhadi, with a family of Palestinian origin in the restaurant business, is a qualified chef but also more recently a property developer. 

At the May bank holiday weekend in 2018 Tovey, acting in a separate business venture, promoted a Music First Festival event at Hastings Oval headlined by UB40 and Alexander O’Neal. It was not a commercial success, but he remained convinced that Hastings was ripe for major music promotion. He teamed up with Abdelhadi to put another show together this year, and they negotiated terms with Gulzar to hold it on the pier at the equivalent May weekend.  Although this event succumbed to the lockdown, the aborted commercial relationship with the pier owner bore more sizeable fruit: he told them that he was looking for someone to take control of all operations on the pier for what was left of the summer season once lockdown was eased.

Open air hospitality

By mid-May, PM Boris Johnson was suggesting in his “Stay Alert” programme that, subject to continued monitoring of infection rates, some open air hospitality venues could reopen at the beginning of July, provided that they were safe and enforced social distancing. Tovey and Abdelhadi saw the opportunity – what could fit this specification better than the open air space of the pier? They agreed to take it on for an initial three-month period, with the option of continuing forward to a ‘winter wonderland’ programme in November/December.

Despite Tovey’s background in promoting concerts by major bands, he confirms that his company’s intentions for the pier, at least for this summer, are to cater for every kind of musical taste, to engage with local performers and their followers – and, above all, to offer the space to as wide a clientele as possible, generally for free. Attractions will include free open air cinema showings on Friday evenings (for adults) and Saturdays (for children); on Sundays there will be offerings of hiphop karaoke and Guitar Hero played out on a big screen. “We cannot and do not intend to be all things to all people – it’s just not possible”, Tovey says. But the aim at this stage is certainly to aim wide.  

Takings from the bar and other franchised facilities will provide the operating income. The two entrepreneurs are confident that, with reasonable weather between now and October, their ideas will pay off. 

PICTURES: Dave Young

Gold for gold

And here they are. The boards have been scrubbed clean of months of seagull droppings. Skips of rubbish have been cleared. Gone (back to Eastbourne, apparently) are the stuffed animals and gold insignia of their bling-obsessed owner. Arrived in their place is a set of 100 picnic tables with benches, also ironically coloured gold, though this was an apparently coincidental finish applied by the supplier, local carpentry business D.A. French.  

The tables are arrayed, at appropriate distance from each other, to form a beer garden for the bar at the sea end and additional seating in the foreground area, which is still flanked by the fish-and-chip bar, ice-cream kiosk and a fast food van.  All but one of the kiosk franchises have been taken for the summer, Tovey says, though some were not yet open for business last weekend.  Beach fashions, a health food bar, tarot-reading and massage services are among the trades on offer. 

An enormous, free, public platform over the sea – inspiring temporary installations and events across a variety of scales

Architect Alex de Rijke, 2017

Opening hours are now 8 am to 11pm (12 midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) seven days a week. Entry remains free, dogs welcome, fishing permitted subject to licence. Toilets are free and open to all, though the management team can’t help regretting the council’s closure of other nearby facilities that results in visitors presenting themselves for that purpose only. The only restriction, apart from the polite (though seemingly pointless) requirement to use separate gates for entry and exit, is an understandable restraint on consuming food and drink not purchased on the premises. 

Restoration architect, Alex de Rijke of dRMM, described his design for the pier in 2017  “as an enormous, free, public platform over the sea – inspiring temporary installations and events across a variety of scales. This space offered more potential than an ‘iconic’ building on the end of the pier”. Under last weekend’s blue skies, calm sea conditions and balmy air currents, visitors and locals alike were returning to bask once again in that vision.

A formal complaint made to Hastings Borough Council by local environmental activist Chris Hurrell concerning the conduct of the chair of the planning committee of Hastings Borough Council, Cllr Alan Roberts, in hearing Sheikh Gulzar’s application for permission to erect sheds on the pier has been rejected. Mr Hurrell complained that, at the hearing in March, Cllr Roberts failed to declare a personal interest, despite having been pictured with the applicant at various social events and being his Facebook friend. Three other councillors on the committee had barred themselves from involvement as being personally acquainted with the applicant or with his agent ‘Lord’ Brett Maclean. However the council’s Standards committee decided that Cllr Roberts’ connexion was not sufficient to require him to declare it.

Mr Hurrell had also complained at the manner in which Cllr Roberts conducted the hearing, allowing the applicant to digress from planning issues and make allegations against numerous parties in the course of his testimony. Mr Hurrell stated that he had never witnessed any other speaker being treated so indulgently by the Chair and given free rein to make allegations “against all and sundry”. The Standards committee made no finding on this complaint, reporting that it did not fall within their remit to address how the meeting was chaired. 

PICTURE: Dave Young

A number of objections had been raised, with arguments that there is already a surfeit of such machines elsewhere in the town, that their advent on the pier would lose it much of the character that had won the RIBA Stirling Prize less than two years earlier, and that further stoking of gambling addictions should not be encouraged. At the planning hearing Cllr Ruby Cox endorsed these objections to vote against grant of permission. She also pointed out that the arcade use would forestall other community activities which had been conducted there before the pier went into administration. But the other committee members voted in favour. The pier, they said, needed income to survive. 

“If you go to Eastbourne pier or to Brighton pier”, declared Cllr Matthew Beaver. “the one thing that attracts people are the amusements”.

In the aftermath, over the bank holiday weekend of 4th/5th May, at least half the length of the pier was barred to the public while facilities were set up to host two music events –“Pier Jam” on the Saturday night and “Garage Nation” on the Sunday, with an influx of party-goers arriving from out of town. 

Adverse weather conditions on the Saturday – high winds and hail showers – caused the first of these events to be cancelled late in the afternoon. Organisers One UK Events issued a statement explaining that wind speeds had reached “dangerous levels”, that the temporary structures had become “unstable” , and that proceeding with the show would have “posed a risk to public safety”. “Garage Nation” went ahead on the Sunday as planned.

There was no suggestion that the condition of the pier itself contributed to the safety risk. But news of Saturday’s late cancellation won’t have encouraged future promoters to gamble on better weather next time. 

A tied relationship: Lord Brett McLean with Sheikh Abid Gulzar
PICTURE: COLIN GIBSON

The facts in dispute are not of immediate interest.  What seems worth reporting, though, are findings the judge made in respect of the character of two of the witnesses before him: Mr Gulzar himself and Mr Manas Singh, who was then  manager of the Lions Hotel and who has appeared in recent weeks, to take a forward role in discussions relating to Hastings pier.

Of Mr Gulzar, Judge Thomas remarked that he: “did not impress us. This was not because of his general demeanour before the Tribunal which might best be described as exhibiting braggadocio. We will mention however that we were not amused by his offer, whether in jest or not, to give the HMRC officers a free stay in his hotels, and we would have been even less amused if we had not cut off what seemed to be an attempt to make the same offer to the Tribunal.

“He was also apparently subject to memory lapses but we put that down to age rather than selective memory (especially as Mr Singh was having to prompt him with answers in some cases). What particularly did not impress us was Mr Gulzar’s performance under cross-examination. To straightforward questions clearly admitting of only one answer
he would do anything, mostly embarking on speeches telling us for the umpteenth time of his business background and achievements, rather than give a straight answer….This meant that he did not engage at all with the documentary evidence that was put to him. We therefore do not accept Mr Gulzar’s evidence without there being clear independent documentary corroboration.”

Of his manager, the judge concluded: “We did not find Mr Singh a convincing witness. He was too ready to give an improbable explanation for anything that might tell against Mr Gulzar…Mr Singh had been, with our permission, priming Mr Gulzar with some of his answers, and it seemed to us that Mr Singh was not of a mind, or in a position, to say anything that would not be in line with the narrative that Mr Gulzar and he had put forward to HMRC and then the Tribunal.’ 

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