I think you're all missing the very obvious fact that if someone farts in this town it's all over social media and the internet. I find it pretty hard to believe that someone could have done some mechanical engineering in broad daylight in full view of half of Colwyn Bay and nobody, not even one person noticed.
Also yoy're forgetting the council couldn't organise a Z** in a brewery never mind something of this magnitude.
I know what you mean, but look at the whole Porth Eirias farce - or series of farces. Firstly, apparently nobody noticed or cared (until it was too late, ie past planning permission stage) that the council had the design changed from the original glass-clad publicly-approved competition-winning entry to something resembling a giant skip - later shortlisted by independent experts for the Carbuncle Cup. How was that allowed to happen?
Incompetence mixed with determination, especially when pursuing something unpopular with (or hidden from) the public, often seems to end up bulldozing things along to some planned target, usually in a destructive or ugly or dubious way. I'm talking generally of course - it's not just CCBC. With the Skip, the desired (amended, face-saving) target was finally reached - a successful celebrity-chef restaurant in place. But at huge public cost, delayed for years, and with a leaky, ugly building that still looks like building site.
Extrapolate the same mixture of incompetence and determination-against-public-wishes (not to mention lack of transparency) to the destiny of the pier, and let's see what we end up with, and by what dubious route.