Campaigners 'angry' at lack of progress over Felixstowe beach huts
They're in a dispute with East Suffolk Council after 44 historic beach huts were moved off the beach
East Suffolk Council says it is open to mediation for solutions to Felixstowe’s promenade beach huts problem, but campaigners have been left angered at the lack of progress.
A lengthy debate took place at the authority’s full council meeting in Lowestoft on Wednesday night after an online petition by campaigners secured more than 4,180 signatures.
It centred around 44 beach huts on the promenade near the Spa Pavilion – a temporary location since 2018 when beach erosion meant they couldn’t stay on the sand despite its historic status as one of the UK’s first beach hut locations.
New homes have been found for 30 of those, leaving 14 without a site, Licences for all 44 have been terminated.
The authority voted to acknowledge the disappointment as a result of no viable solutions being found, and said it was open to mediation to try and come up with fresh ideas for solutions. But a motion by opposition councillors for independent binding mediation to solve the problem was voted down.
Representatives on behalf of the beach hut owners who demonstrated outside the meeting said it was “an absolute disgrace” and came out feeling like they “had not been listened to”.
Ruth Dugdall, author and campaigner said: “The history was not mentioned, the conservation was not mentioned – there were things that were said in that room that implied it was just about 44 beach hut owners, or the 14 huts that don’t have homes – totally missing the fact we are there for 4,000 people who signed the petition.
“The reason we are in the media now is because people care about those beach huts.”
Steve Gallant, leader of the council and one of the Felixstowe ward councillors, said the huts could not stay on the promenade as it is a designated highway and there is no planning permission allowing them to be there.
“The last thing I want is to disappoint anybody, that’s the reality of it. But we are where we are,” he said.
“We have done four years of this and we have got to the end of the road.”
He added: “I absolutely welcome and support the heritage that beach huts bring but we need to do that in a way that is not going to impact on the amenity of the wider population.”
Cllr Gallant said the huts being on the prom was having a detrimental effect on other users of the prom, and said that having independent mediation with a binding outcome could mean the decision was taken by someone who was not in full possession of all the information.
The beach outside the Spa Pavilion is considered to be one of the oldest sites in Britain for static beach huts, with huts there continuously since at least 1891, according to campaigners.
The group’s proposals call for space to be designated there as a unique heritage asset, include signs detailing the history of the site, and for huts to be open for educational ‘living museum’ days.
Campaigners said a new platform on the beach or niches in the prom wall were preferred options. East Suffolk Council said platforms would cost £500,000 and dismissed the idea over concerns about their lifespan, and the position not being suitable for hut owners. It said the beach erosion there was different to other areas of the Felixstowe coastline that meant it would not be safe.
For the niches, it rejected the idea because of the unknown cost implications and loss of amenity space.
Campaigners said its estimates for platforms were around £116,000 which beach hut owners could fund, while the niches could also be funded by beach hut owners at an estimated cost of around £9,000 per hut, while the only land lost would be an unused grass verge.
Earlier this week, the Council for British Archaeology joined the likes of TV comedian and Suffolk resident Griff Rhys-Jones, The Victorian Society and seaside historian Dr Kathryn Ferry among others objecting to the huts’ removal.
The Council for British Archaeology in its letter to East Suffolk Council said that it feared the loss of the huts would harm the conservation area, and added: “Assessment of the structures has revealed that at least seven appear to conform to the original historic design of Felixstowe’s beach huts and are likely to date from the 1890s.”
Campaigners are continuing to pursue a judicial review lodged at the start of the month.