Britain's beach hut boom

Colourful, kitschy beach huts have long been a fixture of the British seaside and have seen a revival in popularity in recent years. Holidaymakers can batten down the hatches if the weather turns nasty or use them for impromptu get-togethers on balmy evenings.

Melanie Whitehead chairs her local beach hut association and extols the virtues of these versatile cabins.

Melanie Whitehead: "This is my beach hut. It's a fairly standard beach hut. Most huts have a cooker for making the all important cup of tea. It comes into its own when it's a horrible day because obviously I can put windows in, I've got spare jumpers and things. And I can, yep, snuggle in here, look at the view and forget about the world really."

With travel overseas curtailed, demand for beach huts has gone through the roof, and the last decade has seen prices quadruple. These tiny cabins now routinely go for an astonishing £40,000 - a price explosion that recent events have only exacerbated.

Melanie Whitehead: "So, the pandemic, this really is very unusual. I mean, we almost saw prices increasing, you know, week on week."

For those priced out of the market, beach hut rentals can be arranged, meaning nobody has to miss out on experiencing this quirky British passion. Walton-on-the-Naze beach huts.com proprietor Sarah Stimson offers further insight into why prices have ballooned.

Sarah Stimson : "But there is also an element that lots of people have beach huts in their families and then never sell them. So, the availability of beach huts is actually quite small. There's much, much more demand than there is in terms of availability."

Nostalgia could also have a part to play in Britain's affinity for beach huts, as they are a throwback to childhood days in the garden, as Sarah further explains.

Sarah Stimson: "It's a bit like having a grown-up Wendy house on the beach, isn't it? So I think grown-ups quite like it for that reason."

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