I went to the beach last weekend and still feel somewhat euphoric for the experience. Not having been bought up in this country, I wasn't attuned from an early age to the idea that swimming in icy waters and drying off on hard stones afterwards was anything but torturous. However, after a week of relentlessly depressing weather in London, a few hours spent in the sun on the beach at Lulworth Cove in Dorset was a perfect tonic.
The journey from Salisbury isn't easy but the frustrations of sitting behind a series of Saturday afternoon drivers was more than made up for by the spectacular rolling Dorset countryside. All the rain has left the patchwork fields so lush and green and the road rises and dips over the hills as you draw near the coast. It was most attractive.
Having said that, I'm not sure that any sort of 'road to Damascus' feelings about the Dorset coast would stretch to forking out the £95,000 that Savills are today quoting for a beach hut at Canford Cliffs. This is often wet and cold Britain, after all.
For your hard earned cash, you would be entitled to: 13'9" x 7'5" (4,23m x 2,28m) of brick built, semi-detached hut. Apparently, I might be alone in not being entirely seduced by this prospect.
The bumf that comes in the brochure states that Poole Council have closed applicants to the waiting list for beach huts. 'Once the waiting time is reduced to 5 years the list will re-open and you will be informed through this website.'
There are more expensive, similarly sized huts to be found around the world which, to me, have more appeal. £95,000 is roughly EUR 140,000 which is half the price offered to someone I know for his fisherman's hut. The only (not inconsiderable) difference is that this hut is perched on some rocks at the foot of the Traumuntana mountains of Mallorca and your neighbour, as you sit enjoying your fresh catch for the vast expanse of the Mediterranean that stretches out in front of you, would be Michael Douglas.
Overpriced beach huts
Thursday, 12 July 2007
Comments
sarah
May 07 22:57
The waiting list for these bargain huts is huge of course, 10 years I am told, we were lucky to get ours 3 years ago and love beach hut life. So much so, that I have opened a little shop inspired by all things easide and beach hut www.seasideandhome.co.uk
Tim Baber
July 16 07:22
is it a spoiler if I say I'm looking forward to the August 2nd edition of Country Life because there should be a feature on beach huts?
I got a whisper because I am "beachhutman" of
http://www.msbnews.co.uk
a website and beach newspaper devoted to beach huts locally and like you arguing huts are overpriced.
In 2004 or so I sold our family beach hut at Mudeford Sandbank, Dorset for £120,000. It was 12 X11feet but in a lovely spot.
This is largely to do with supply and demand but also prices became inflated after 1990 when colour supplements started to drive the market generally.
Not your fault, information is always important in offering choice for your intellligent readers who can make their own mind up.
I am plewased to see you are alert to what is overpricing where a hut can cost £700 a square foot to buy with no real rights or security of tenure.
But if you can find a hut that you can afford there is still a lot of satisfaction to be had, hence my starting the English Beach Hut Movement to argue councils should try to meet the waiting lists or re-open them and build or allow more huts along our coasts. That might bring prices down for the ret of us.
Plese cut and paste this into your browser:
http://web.mac.com/beachhutman/iWeb/Site/Blog/6DC483F6-3CC2-49F8-A353-69F2B47B91A0.html
to see useful background so as to spend your money wisely.
I found a 9x7 day hut for only £6,000 on the edge of the New Forest with bunnies nibbling at the grass on the cliff behind (and with £120,000 in the bank from selling the old hut) I am a happy man.
All I need now is a beach hut wife.
No, that might spoil it? I've only just got it how I like it. A beach hut wife would want curtains, chintz n' stuff.
You know what men are like with their sheds. Purity of deign, functionality, minimalism. Reducing one's leisure to the essentials of a reclining chair, a radio (iPod) and some beer.
But a beach hut wife would no doubt, like me, rather be back in a larger Mudeford sandbank hut which would make me poor again.
Hmmm, it is all a balancing act and the knife edge is what you can afford. or get away with.
Oh! lucky the man who can have a pretty hut and a rich wife. A very rich person could arrange to have two huts. Or maybe
Oh! lucky the woman who can have a pretty hut and forget about the husband - at least for the week-end. Sdaly at Mudeford Sandbank one household canot have more than one hut. When Jim Longman married sally bath and they both had a hut the council forced them to sell one off - ar advised them to get divorced!
A beach hut opens a whole world of possibilities - and opportunities.
But not for me - so far with respect to a wife.
It is all about what you can afford, or what you can achieve.
A beach hut is more than a status symbol, it is about survival on the strand. And for some, whoi can stand teenagers in a small space, the next generation.
Tim Baber