A proposal to phase in a big rise in beach hut transfer fees was defeated by councillors last night (Thursday 11 January).
The fee will go up from £82 to at least £1,212 from April despite an attempt by Conservatives to have the increase staggered over three years rather than imposed in one go.
Proposed fees and charges for the 2018-19 financial year for dozens of activities and facilities were presented to members of Brighton and Hove City Council.
Most of them are to rise by about 2 per cent to take inflation into account.
But the council’s Tourism, Development and Culture Committee was asked to agree the much bigger rise for the transfer fee charged when a beach hut is sold.
Councillor Robert Nemeth said that most of the fees and charges that were going up were rising at about the rate of inflation.
But he said: “In the case of beach huts the increase is 1,378 per cent.
“I have concerns that such a rise is exploitative and that it takes advantage of the lack of a co-ordinated voice among beach hut owners.
“There is no explicit basis in the corporate policy for profit-making unrelated to cost recovery.
“I fear that this proposed rise will simply make beach huts for the wealthiest in our city rather than a fairly balanced group who came to own the huts in all sorts of interesting ways.
“Beach hut owners are being painted as a privileged few which certainly isn’t the case.
“Finally, it sets a dangerous precedent which puts many other hobbies and interests in the firing line for extortionate rises.
“And I fear unintended consequences which we will see first as a lack of maintenance.”
Councillor Nemeth accepted that the rise was likely to be voted through – and it was – but he asked for it to be phased over three years. It won’t be.
Councillor Mary Mears, a fellow Tory and former leader of the council, said: “These increases are astronomical.”
The Labour administration appeared to be targeting a particular group, she said, adding: “Not every beach hut owner is very affluent.”
Green councillor Tom Druitt said that he was more concerned about the social services budget than the cost of selling a beach hut.
And Labour councillor Kevin Allen said: “So, the Conservatives are going for the beach hut vote.
“We should be working on behalf of the many rather than the few.”
His Labour colleague Councillor Clare Moonan pointed out that the beach huts were selling for up to £25,000, adding: “These beach huts aren’t available except to a tiny minority.”
She said that the fee was levied only when a hut was sold so would be paid from the “tidy profit” that was usually made at that point.
Councillor Nemeth said that with a higher transfer fee, fewer of the 459 wooden huts might be put up for sale.
Owners currently pay £360 a year for having their beach hut on the council-owned promenade.
A report to councillors said that this was worth about £140,000 a year to the council.
Huts can be sold once they have been owned for three years and there have been about 40 transfers a year over the past couple of years.
The report added: “In recent years, the value of a beach hut on the seafront has risen well above inflation and more in line with the increases in the local property market.
“Huts sold this year have ranged in price between £16,000 to £22,500 depending on the location and the condition of the hut.
“There is a hut currently on the market at £25,000. Sale evidence suggests an increase in values of between 45 per cent to 50 per cent over the five-year period since 2012.”
You seem to have miss typed the headline. It should say “People who have lots of money and profited from a hugely appreciating asset asked to pay a small fee”
It’s alarming that a Labour councillor is using the party’s new mantra of “for the many, not the few” to justify not standing up for a minority. Surely this wasn’t the intention when the phrase was adopted by the party?
The fee will go up from £82 to at least £1,212 from April despite an attempt by Conservatives to have the increase staggered over three years rather than imposed in one go’
How on earth can the Labour controlled council justify this increase?
Owning a beach hut is a little bit of pleasure for those who particularly live in a flat – this daylight robbery will hinder hard working folk to buy one
What a misinformed commentator TS.
Most of the beach hut owners have had their huts in their families for generations and they only cost a few hundred pounds originally. They are not rich people. I remember after the big storms of recent years, some families had to wait 2 or 3 years in order to afford to rebuild their huts.
It is only recently that prices to buy huts have rocketed.
Should it only be newbie residents with more cash than locals buying up every last square inch of Brighton and Hove who should have the huts?
I thought the council wanted to promote healthy living for locals. Beach huts provide fresh air and healthy living for all generations of families and their friends, and many hut owners do not take expensive holidays abroad, but spend all of their free time on the sea front.
I know of cancer survivers who spend most of their lives in their own little huts and have been given fresh leases of life through the healthy atmosphere seafront living provides.
Since when has a money grasping council had the right to price every local out of their tiny patch of enjoyment, whether through extortionate parking fees and now through massive increases to breathe in the fresh air of the sea front on their own little spot?
The council no longer represents the people of the city and shame of each and every one of them who voted for this increase.
No doubt their expenses or wages will not decrease to fund the city.
£1200 is about 5% of the price the huts have been selling for, comparable to stamp duty on a house and not unreasonable it seems to me.
You can’t live in a beach hut. Stamp duty is theft. Inheritance tax is theft. This is theft from a Council that keeps millions of pounds in reserve. They can find the money to build arty plinths on the promenade but they say that they ‘can’t afford’ to replace the broken litter bins, keep the toilets clean or keep the promenade litter-picked or swept.
Tax is not theft, it’s part of the social contract when you live in a community with shared resources. If you don’t like it, feel free to move to a desert island and build your own roads, hospitals, schools etc. as and when you need them.