Brighton Pier Group Plc, which owns the pier, have said the money collected will help to cover the costs of maintaining the 125-year-old structure in the East Sussex seaside town
One of the country’s most iconic tourist attractions is to start charging for entry for the first time in its history.
The Palace Pier in Brighton will soon require most day trippers and thrill seekers to fork out £1 if they want to enter. The charge will come into effect on 25 May, and run on weekends in June and throughout June, July and August.
Brighton Pier Group Plc, which owns the pier, have said the money collected will help to cover the costs of maintaining the 125-year-old structure. Anyone with a residents card – which people living in a BN postcode can apply for and is free – will not have to pay, while children up to the age of two will also be free.
The iconic seaside structure regularly tops polls as the most popular free tourist attraction outside of London, but no longer. Many of the four million people who visit it each year will now have to stump up to access the fun.
The charge is being introduced on the pier’s 125th anniversary, with the owners claiming that operating costs have recently increased by 31%. In a half year period in 2023 Brighton Pier Group Plc lost £1million, compared to a £700,000 profit in the same six months the year before, Brighton and Hove News reported. The downturn was blamed on the weather and train strikes.
The news has not been met with positivity by everyone. One potential punter saw it as part of a broader decline in British life. He wrote on X/Twitter: “Just waiting until the UK starts privatising public spaces, happening with Brighton pier with an entry fee, then parks next, then beaches (which you can’t even swim in cos all our water is polluted).”
CEO of the pier company, Anne Ackord, explained why the decision had been made. She said: “We see ourselves as the custodians of the pier. Many of our team, including myself, live and work in Brighton and we understand first-hand the importance of the pier within our city.
“The pier is a substantial structure and in recent years, the costs associated with maintaining and operating it to the same high levels of upkeep, strength and structural integrity, have increased significantly.
“We have, to date, been able to offset and absorb these costs but we have now reached the point where, in our view, it is sensible to implement a small admission charge for visitors to the pier from outside the local area.”
While Buckingham Palace, the London Eye and the Angel of the North may be better known and higher up on the ‘to visit’ lists of people stopping by the UK for the first time, Sussex’s most famous 1,760 foot amusement structure attracts the densest throngs of sightseers, a study found last year.
According to an analysis of Statista data on inbound tourist arrivals which shows a place’s monthly visitor count, combined with Google’s popular times data, visitor numbers can be broken down by day and approximated hourly crowd sizes.
At its busiest times 4,454 people visit the Pier, cramming onto the iconic, lengthy structure for a chance at winning it big on the 2p machines, ride the rollercoasters or spin around the classic helta skelta.
The Pier was listed in a rankings of the Continents busiest spots that was compiled hospitality company Accor. On Tripadvisor, where the attraction has a four out of five star rating, people have shared mixed reviews describing it as “noisy and busy” but admitting “it’s full of fun.”
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