Brighton i360

Brighton i360 is a 162-metre (531 ft) moving observation tower on the seafront of Brighton, East Sussex, England, at the landward end of the remains of the West Pier. The tower opened on 4 August 2016. From the fully enclosed viewing pod, visitors experience 360-degree views across Brighton, the South Downs and the English Channel.

Brighton i360 was designed, engineered, manufactured and promoted by the team responsible for the London Eye. The attraction cost £46 million, with £36 million being funded by a Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) loan through Brighton and Hove city council. Planning permission was granted in 2006, with the then Labour leader of the council, Simon Burgess, stating that "It is going to transform the city. The i360 will be a familiar picture postcard image - recognisable throughout the world. It will generate huge amounts of cash and benefit the city's economy all year round."

The following year the Secretary of State for Transport, Douglas Alexander, amended legislation which would have otherwise threatened the project due to restrictive land lease terms. The Brighton West Pier Harbour Revision Order 2007 granted under the then Labour government conferred powers to the Brighton West Pier Trust for leasing the pier and making byelaws to regulate the pier, allowing the i360 project to move forward.

Formerly known as the British Airways i360 for sponsorship purposes, the project originally aimed to attract 739,000 paying customers every year. The owner of the site, the West Pier Trust, hoped in 2014 that a successful i360 would lead to the rebuilding of the historic West Pier. Visitor numbers never reached those projected and, in December 2022, having also felt the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism industry, the i360 defaulted on the debt it owed the council. By June 2023, the i360's debt to the council was more than £48 million, a figure around £12 million more than the original loan agreed. In November 2024, the company running the attraction filed for administration. The i360 entered administration and closed with immediate effect on 20 December 2024. On 4 February 2025, it was announced the i360 would reopen following the purchase by Nightcap Ltd. The new owners paid £150,000. The i360 reopened to the public on 8 March 2025.

Brighton i360 was designed by the architectural company Marks Barfield, which also designed the London Eye. The building was conceived as a "vertical pier". The tower is located at the shore end of the ruined West Pier, and the design recreated the original Italianate ticket booths of the West Pier, placed on either side of the entrance, serving as ticket office and tea room. The design also includes a beachfront building that allows access to the tower and houses a café and gift shop.

The tower is designed as a 162-metre (531 ft) tall needle structure with an ascending and descending circular viewing platform with capacity for 200 people.

The tower's initial design had included a wind turbine at the top and rainwater harvesting facilities, to help mitigate the attraction's environmental impact. In October 2015 the developers dropped both these proposals, claiming that the turbine would have stopped the tower's damping system from working and be susceptible to wind damage, and that the water would be "too dirty to be usable".

Plans were submitted in June 2006 and were approved by Brighton and Hove city council later that year with construction projected to start in 2007. Following delays of around 15 months, the off-site construction of the sections of the tower began in 2008 in the Netherlands, advanced piling works at the West Pier site started in October 2009 and work on reconstructing the arches beneath and to the east of the pier to allow the tower construction began in November 2012. Work on the tower itself began in May 2014, with the attraction being scheduled to open in 2016.