The fibre optic links had been severed, apparently by construction works in the town centre, a council report admits.
Images could still be monitored in offices at the pier itself.  However, as the fire took hold the night watchman was in the basement of the building doing maintenance work.

It was left to members of the public to raise the alarm, too late to prevent the pierhead being destroyed.

The Council's insurers are now looking into whether the consultants can be made to pay to replace them.  Southend town clerk Rob Tinlin writes in his report: "The work designed and carried out by and for Bradwell has resulted in a number of difficulties and subsequent modifications and cost". These included the installation of American-style hydrants with non-standard keys, which were not carried on fire appliances.  The pipes also had no isolation valves, which would have allowed the fire service to carry on using them even after part of the system collapsed with the pier head.

The report suggests the plastic material and the lack of isolation valves were the result of cost-cutting.  When the seawater supply failed, firefighters switched to the old freshwater supply. But precious minutes were wasted because the hydrant covers were incorrectly labelled by contractors during the Pier Hill revamp.

The phrase, long-awaited, often attaches itself to a report.  But seldom has it been a better fit than in the case of the 2005 Southend Pier fire investigation. 

The report takes on board a lot of detailed investigation, yet at every stage, one simple question remains uppermost.  Why has it taken so long?  The report reveals little that wasn't public knowledge within a few days of October 10, 2005.  It was apparent, very early, that the systems put in place to save the pier had failed.  Forensic investigations were complete within a few weeks.  By delaying the report's publication, those responsible have added to the existing sense of confusion and drift.  A swift and open approach would have been the right one.  Press and public would have responded in similar spirit. 

In the fight for the pier's future, learning from mistakes is more important than blame.  We are all on the same side.  Studying the report produces a sense of incredulity.  How could it have been allowed to happen, on  Southend Pier of all places?  Given the pier's disastrous history of fires, it should have been protected by level upon level of back-up systems.  Instead, maintenance problems meant both its frontline defences - the CCTV cameras and the water supply - let the pier down at its moment of need.  So did the response plan.  The extraordinary farce of the fire hydrant keys that nobody could find at the critical moment was symptomatic.  Such niggles should have been ironed out.  An earlier practice exercise by the emergency services, rightly concentrated on saving human life.  It's a pity that there wasn't a similar exercised to save the pier.

Overall, the report conveys the sense that a few simple routines might have worked where technology failed.  Long before the fire, pier bar owner Francis McGinty was telling anybody would would listen that the pier should be hosed down each evening - a low tech practice almost as old as piers themselves and taken fro granted in many other resorts.  In years to come, that simple exercise might just save the pier from yet another fire, and prove that something really has been learned from history.