"COLLAPSE" is a big word – or at any rate a dramatic word. "Collapse at any time," suggests immediate risk, a severe emergency.

So ears are bound to prick up when these alarms are raised over Whitby’s two main harbour piers, the massive stone bulwarks protecting the town. Well, a few miles up the coast is the ruined harbour of Port Mulgrave. A Victorian endeavour for the shipment of iron ore to Tyneside, abandoned in 1921, its twin piers were succumbing to the sea when I first knew them in the 1950s. They’re rubble now, but the process has taken almost a century.

So the fears of an imminent collapse of Whitby’s far more substantial piers seem a trifle overblown. A walk on the piers should not be an act of reckless bravado.

Which raises another point. Mention of ‘piers’ instantly brings to mind the spidery cast iron structures splendidly represented in this region by Saltburn’s pier. Truncated though it is, it’s hugely popular. And yet far more people stroll on Whitby’s west pier. Not built for pleasure it nevertheless fulfils that role as well as any ‘pleasure’ pier in England.

Its East Side companion has untapped potential to do the same. Its special attraction is its position away from the hurly burly of the harbourside yet offering a view into the town, facing the sun. But it has only two or three seats. For 12 years it has also lacked a bridge to the pier extension, formerly popular with fishermen. Six years ago there was optimistic talk of restoring the bridge – but it is still missing.

Arguably the tourism aspect of Whitby’s piers is under-valued. When worries about their condition were first raised, in 2008, the district council’s Principal Coastal Officer stated: “It is recognised the piers are essential to providing coastal defence, reducing tidal flood risk and providing shelter for vessels.” No mention of them as an amenity – in fact a primary attraction.

Because of the effort involved, an ascent of Whitby’s famous 199 steps (created as a link to the church, not the abbey, please note), can sometimes be omitted from a visit to Whitby – at least for those who have struggled up before. But no visit is complete without a stroll on one or more of the piers. I love an image of the west pier in a poem by the late Tom Stamp, Whitby ironmonger, poet and man of considerable learning, lightly worn. Picturing Whitby on a wild day in winter he observes:

The pier with rough winds sweeping,

Great waves leaping,

Is deserted,

Left like an abandoned ship,

To the sea.

Of course, it’s unthinkable the piers should ever be abandoned to the sea. Not well known is that the entire west side harbour frontage seaward from the bridge was constructed as part of the works that created the two main piers in the late 18th Century. In 1817, the Whitby historian George Young hailed the whole as “a most excellent promenade”- early recognition of the piers’ tourism role. Given the attention they need, they will be providing pleasure long after the last pleasure pier has crumbled to dust. And they’re free.