Campaigners fighting to save Weston-super-Mare’s Birnbeck Pier are urging the public to get behind the cause and vote for them to win thousands of pounds in funding from a national supermarket chain.

The Birnbeck Regeneration Trust is working with the pier’s owners, CNM Estates, to raise millions of pounds in funding to hopefully restore the dilapidated structure after years of neglect.

The charity applied to take part in Tesco’s Bags of Help scheme, which uses the supermarket’s 5p carrier bag charge to improve green space in communities across the country.

As the trust has made it through to the final round of the scheme, it will now be pitted head-to-head against two other community organisations to win either £8,000, £10,000 or £12,000 – and it is down to the public to decide which sum of money the trust receives.

Shoppers in the Weston town centre branch of the store, in Station Road, will be able to vote for the trust to win the top £12,000 prize in-store from Saturday to March 6. People will receive a token with each transaction and will then be encouraged to vote for the project they would like the most funding to go to.

A spokesman for the trust said: “The money was requested for the fencing necessary to make the pathways safe along the coastal path to the north of Birnbeck Pier and the Pier Master’s Cottage.

“This is a public footpath which until recently was completely overgrown after many years of neglect, and was cleared with the kind assistance of Lynch Plant Hire of Bridgwater in late October 2015.”

For more information on the competition, visit the Birnbeck Regeneration Trust’s website.