Jubilant volunteers behind the restoration of Queen’s Pier say after a momentous Bank Holiday weekend, the big push is on to start work on the next two bays.

Corroded iron girders and cross bars were replaced with new steel in bay one during a heavy lift operation over three days.

With tangible progress being seen on the Victorian landmark, volunteers with the Queen’s Pier Restoration Trust hope this will be a spur for people to donate funds toward the next stage of the project.

So far, about £30,000 has been raised for the next batch of steelwork for bays two and three, with a further £8,000 needing to be found before the order can be placed.

Momentous

Trustee Graham Curphey said: ’We had a momentous bank holiday weekend with all the old iron taken out from bay one and the new steel put in place along with two greenheart beams in preparation for the rest of the wooden base.

’We had so many volunteers who gave up their whole bank holiday weekend along with Isle of Man Heavy Cranes to lift the old iron out and place the new steel in.

Mr Curphey, a former logistics co-ordinator at British Army Royal Corps of Transport, said: ’For the last two years, all everybody’s ever seen is the destruction of bay one and now you can see it being restored.

’What we have to do to complete phase one of our project is to do bays two and three. So there’s now the big push to raise the remaining money which is around £8,000 we need.

’If we had the money available, we could order the steel within the next two or three weeks and we could have it here within six to eight weeks.’

The bay has 60 bays in total and eventually all the ironwork along its length will have to be replaced. But the volunteers are hoping the day won’t be too far off when the public will be able to walk along at least a short section of the pier for the first time since its closure in 1990.

You can make a donation by going to https://www.qprt.im/donations