Monday, June 23rd 2006. 

Articles reproduced with kind permission of the Evening Echo newspaper.

Text appearing here is a direct reproduction of that published in the articles shown herein

Fran McGinty has a right to be angry.  Not only has Southend Council decided his pavilion on Southend Pier must be pulled down, he has now been told the blaze on the landmark probably started in his pub, near the disabled entrance.  Southend Council's chief executive Rob Tinlin made the claim in his long-awaited report into last October's pier blaze.

What evidence was used to reach this conclusion?  Only Mr Tinlin knows that.  The official fire service report into the blaze gave a very general location of where the fire started and did not single out the disabled access in McGinty's bar.  If Mr Tinlin's claim is correct, why was the fire service not more specific in revealing details of where the blaze started?  People could be forgiven for thinking Mr McGinty is being used as a scapegoat for the fire, which destroyed the pier's south station, public toilets, a fish and chip shop and, of course the pub.

He will not stand for it.  Mr McGinty is one of those people who make the pier a success.  For many years, he was willing to plough his own cash into improvements.  Mc McGinty insists there was no electrical wiring in the disabled access and he had a ban on smoking in his pub for years.  Mr Tinlin now needs to tell Mr McGinty what evidence he has to suggest the fire started in the disabled access to McGinty's.

In his official report, Mr Tinlin said there had been "much speculation" about the fire's cause.  He added: "There is no conclusive evidence to support any of this speculation".  Yet Mr Tinlin adds to this speculation by suggesting the fire started at McGinyy's without suitable supporting evidence.  The fact is, Southend Council owns the pier.  Bearing in mind past fires, the council had a duty of care to make sure measures were in place to deal with a fire or other major incident.  Yet there were clear failures.  The smoking ban was not enforced.  There was no fire alarm alerting the fire service.  Keys to the fire hydrants were put in pier trains.  Nobody on duty knew where they were.  We will probably be told in the future that the council had no money to invest into equipment to fight fires on the pier. 

There is one solution: Find a developer like Swine ride entrepreneur Tony Garner and let them breathe new life into our pier.

Article by Chris Hatton