MUMBLES Pier will stay open for now, but it will come at a cost, say the owners.

Following a safety inspection, the company which owns the Victorian structure, Ameco, has announced the pier will remain open for the next six months.

However, the detailed survey showed the pier is in need of £75,000 of work to safeguard sections open to the public, on top of £32,000 already earmarked for other essential work.

An Ameco spokesman said the cost keeping it open for that time would exhaust an emergency fund needed for other upgrading work and could affect plans to build a hotel apartments and a boardwalk.

John Bollom, Ameco's managing director, admitted it was "touch and go" over whether the pier would remain open to the public.

He said: "We accept that £75,000 on top of the £32,000 already committed for other essential work is an expensive short-term measure.

"It only extends the present life by just six months when resources should be going into preparations for a total rebuild.

Restoration

"To some extent, we might as well throw the money off the end of the pier as far as the long term is concerned."

However, he said the alternative was a summer season with a closed pier and no sign of progress on a restoration deal.

"We clearly cannot continue to spend this level of money, especially when we have now also used up cash set aside to fund site preparation", he added. "I don't know as yet what this will do the development proposals but the pier is our main priority."

The announcement has been welcomed across Swansea, including by anglers like Lyndon Lammas, vice-president of the South and West Wales Association of Sea Angling Clubs, who said it was "brilliant news".

He added: "This is great. It gives us all the chance to look at where the future is going.

"It's wonderful it's going to stay open: the pier is a reminder to people my age of where they started angling and it's great for youngsters to learn and also for disabled people.

"We (anglers) want to get involved with pier and we will do anything we can to support keeping it open."

Swansea Council's leader Chris Holley also said he was thrilled to hear Mumbles Pier would stay open at least for the next six months.

"It's good news, I'm absolutely delighted" he said. "We hope to sit down with the pier owners in the near future to look at finalising a document for the redevelopment to go before planning.

"The pier is an icon of Swansea, but it's more than that, it's about job creation and improving the area for residents and visitors.

"Whatever happens we will fight tooth and nail to keep the pier."

It is anticipated a joint application by Ameco and the RNLI to restore the pier and build a new modern lifeboat station will go before Swansea Council on Thursday, April 14. Talks for the development of the headland are ongoing.

helen.keates@swwmedia.co.uk