Making Waves: Why Weston-super-Mare needs more beach huts

Only nine remain after a calamitous pilot scheme over a decade ago, when 24 huts were trialled.

But a combination of unimaginative marketing, resulting in low demand, and storm damage wrecked what could still be a winner for Weston.

Brightly painted beach huts are an enduring seaside attraction and are in great demand everywhere, apart from here it seems.

Bournemouth, for example, has 3,700 council-owned beach huts.

The average UK price has nudged £50,000, and the most sought-after can fetch a staggering £450,000 to £500,000, well over the average national house price.

However, the price tag does not rule out other options to rent or lease, for example, or to buy a licence to install your own hut on a seafront plot.

Holidaymakers could be offered short-term rental deals by the day or week.

Partnerships with hotels and boarding houses could market beach-hut rental as part of a holiday package deal.

In-demand beach huts can also attract investment and buy-in among residents.

Now global warming is heating visitor numbers to British seaside resorts like Weston, there’s an opportunity to further broaden the appeal of bucket-and-spade family holidays.

No need to jet away any longer when the sun shines at home.

The seaside just isn’t the same without beach huts.

Interiors can be kitted out with comfortable seating and for self-catering, while families enjoy Weston’s two-mile-long sandy beach.

Additional facilities, such as toilets, water and power points, would be required.

And this time, unlike in 2015, the huts should be securely embedded on the prom to limit damage from increasingly extreme weather events.

Such potentially valuable property assets would also bring with them cafés, bars, better retail outlets and service providers, generating jobs and boosting the local economy.

Originating from Georgian bathing machines on wheels and adapted by the Victorians, the early beach huts separated the rich from the poor.

The less well-off could not afford a contraption to protect their modesty and ease them into the sea.

And at current prices, the land-based modern equivalents maintain that distinction.

Unless, that is, creative marketing makes them affordable.

North Somerset Council can clearly learn from more inspired and creative local authorities who have successfully built and managed beach huts.

Objections that the huts would block sea views are frankly fanciful when the sea is an infrequent visitor to the front.

Only one other place in the world – the Bay of Fundy, located between Canada's New Brunswick and Nova Scotia – has a greater tidal range than Weston.

So with the sea often a mile offshore, we need to make the prom more attractive and inviting.

Much-needed regeneration should not stop at the High Street.

Needless to say, reinstating a lido at the Tropicana is another obvious investment necessary to provide residents and visitors alike with a safe place to swim.