Birnbeck Pier is a pier in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, England. It is situated on the Bristol Channel approximately 18 miles (29 km) south west of Bristol. It links the mainland with Birnbeck Island, a 1.2 hectares (12,000 m²) rocky island just to the west of Worlebury Hill, and is the only pier in the country which links the mainland to an island.

The grade II* listed pier was designed by Eugenius Birch and opened in 1867. The gothic toll house and pierhead buildings were designed by local architect Hans Price. The pier has been closed to the public since 1994.

A proposal in 1845 to link Birnbeck Island to the mainland at the western end of Worlebury Hill saw work start on a suspension bridge two years later. A strike by stonemasons during which a storm damaged the little that had been built saw an end to that scheme.

A new proposal came in 1864 to form a company to build a pier across to the island. This was funded by 2,000 shares which raised £20,000. Cecil Hugh Smyth-Pigott, the four-year-old son of the lord of the manor, laid the foundation stone on 28 October 1864 when a public holiday was declared in the town and a celebratory dinner was held in the Town Hall.

Edward Henry Butler Vaizey (born 5 June 1968) is the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries in the UK, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State post with responsibilities in both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

He was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for the constituency of Wantage in the 2005 general election, and was re-elected in the 2010 general election.

He is a trained barrister, and regular columnist and commentator.

Vaizey is the son of the late Lord Vaizey, a life peer, and Marina Vaizey, a well-known art historian. As the son of a peer he has the title "The Honourable Edward Vaizey". Vaizey spent part of his childhood growing up in Berkshire. He was educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford, where he rose to the rank of Librarian (Vice President) of the Oxford Union and took a BA in History, achieving a 2.1. After leaving Oxford, Vaizey worked for the Conservative politicians Kenneth Clarke and Michael Howard as an adviser on employment and education issues. He trained and practised as a barrister for several years, specialising in family law and child care cases.

John David Penrose (born 22 June 1964) is the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Weston-super-Mare. He is Minister for Tourism & Heritage at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, he went to Ipswich School. He studied at Downing College, Cambridge, receiving a BA in Law in 1986. He received an MBA from Columbia University in 1991.

He was a Bank Trading Floor Risk Manager at JP Morgan from 1986–90, then a management consultant at McKinsey & Company from 1992-4. He was Commercial Director of the Academic Books Division at Thomson Publishing in Andover from 1995-6, then Managing Director of Schools Book Publishing at Longman (Pearson PLC), publishing school textbooks for the UK and parts of Africa. He was chairman of Logotron Ltd in Cambridge. (also owned by Pearson). In 1998, he was in charge of research at the Bow Group.

He was elected in the 2005 general election, winning the seat from the Liberal Democrat Brian Cotter and retained his seat in the 2010 general election. He had previously contested Weston-super-Mare unsuccessfully in 2001, and Ealing Southall in 1997.