The restoration of Ramsey’s Victorian-era Queen’s Pier is being handed over to a new project manager, Dennis Curphey, as it moves into phase two of the work.

Mr Curphey comes from a background of 56 years in construction, the last 20 years of which as a site manager.

The handover comes amidst the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate the largest personal donation the Queen’s Pier Restoration Trust have ever received - £30,000 left in the will of Johnny Green, a popular gardener from the town who loved fishing off the pier.

Phase one consisted of the first three bays of the pier, the widest, being completed this summer.

After Easter this section will be open the public on Sunday afternoons.

Mr Curphey is taking over from Stuart McKenzie, a former shipping tanker captain who had handled the first phase as project manager, and will still help out on the pier.

He first began volunteering on the pier in 2019, when the very first of the old steel was removed from the pier for replacement.

As progress currently stands, the old timber work has now been stripped off ready for work on bays four and five (of 60 total), which are expected to be completed this year.

And scaffolding has already been added to bay six, in preparation for work on that, which is hoped to begin next year along with bays seven and eight (which will complete phase two).

Currently, the volunteers, of which there are around eight working regularly on the site, are waiting on a shipment of steel from Glasgow, due to arrive in April.

The steel for bays four, five and six has already been purchased.

Mr Curphey pointed out that they were fortunate to have already purchased the steel girders when they did as prices continue to rise - something which has impacted the entire construction sector during the pandemic.

It will cost around £20,000 just to manufacture the steel for bay six.

All the timber needed is for phase two has also already been obtained and is ready in Ramsey.

Meanwhile, the original fittings for the pier (such as railings and lampposts) are being brought down from storage in Jurby so that can be prepared for re-fitting to the pier.

Mr Curphey, who is from Andreas, said that phase two is going to be ’a lot quicker than phase one, because obviously we were still learning our way on phase one’.

’Phase one was a big learning curve, but we’ve got the feel for it now,’ he added.

Asked about how donations are going, Mr Curphey said that they were ’steadily trickling in’ but that ’the bulk’ of the funding came in from legacy donations.

The QPRT is again offering people the opportunity to sponsor the project, from anything from a £75 plank (which comes with a small named plaque) up to an entire bay.

People can either stop by the pier’s site office (which is manned every morning), or visit the QPRT Facebook page.