Campaigners secure council debate on future of Felixstowe's beach huts
The future of 14 of the beach huts is in doubt, after they were moved because of coastal erosion
Last updated 30th Mar 2022
Campaigners fighting to save Felixstowe’s promenade beach huts have secured a full council debate on their future.
The prom near the Spa Pavilion theatre has seen 44 beach huts placed there for several years after beach erosion meant they couldn’t stay on the beach itself.
New locations were secured for all but 14, prompting the council to say it was terminating licences as there were no other options. Campaigners have continued to battle for them to stay ahead of East Suffolk Council’s March 31 deadline.
But the authority has now confirmed that the matter will go before May’s full council meeting.
An online petition, started two weeks ago, was submitted to the council on March 25, and has now garnered more than 2,850 signatures.
An East Suffolk Council spokesperson said: “As the petition raised by the beach hut owners has over 1,200 signatures, it will automatically go to the next full council meeting on Wednesday, May 25.”
A host of options are available to the council meeting, including upholding its current position or it could hold a referendum locally with options.
Campaigners are pursuing a judicial review of the decision-making on the issue, specifically around notices of licences being terminated being put out before the planning committee’s decision on relocating the huts.
Julie Downton, Beach Hut Association secretary, said: “The judicial review has been brought about because the licences were terminated on February 14 – before they had even gone to the planning meeting.”
She said campaigners were “prepared to take it all the way,” because “these huts mean so much to people,” adding: “It would be a travesty to actually see where the first beach huts were in England there will no longer be any. I think that’s very sad.”
Hut owners have suggested a series of options, such as waiting for the beach to replenish, building new platforms or setting them back from the prom in ‘niches’.
But East Suffolk Council says it has “thoroughly explored all reasonable options”.
Felixstowe is understood to be one of the first beaches in the country to have housed beach huts, with the popular seafront structures having arrived there in the late 19th Century.