Beach Huts at Goring-by-Sea

See Also:
http://www.beachhutsuk.com/ Oliver & Saunders Estate Agents at Ferring
http://www.beachhuts.org.uk/ covers West Sussex
http://www.beach-huts.co.uk/ based at Lichfield, covers the UK

Beach Huts 10 year wait list
From the Argus 26 August 2003
Worthing Borough Council hires out 111 huts and 55 chalets. There are another 285 privately owned huts and the authority charges a fee for the pitch and have been selling for more than Ł7,000. The waiting list has been closed. The wait is currently five years for a council hut and up to ten years for a private hut. At present there are 280 people on the list.
It costs Ł484 to hire a beach hut for the summer, Ł76 for the winter, and Ł510 for the year. Chalets cost Ł529, Ł95 and Ł580.
Private owners must pay the council Ł229 a year for a licence which demands that the hut is kept in good condition. Huts for sale are sometimes advertised, but could cost over £7000.
The WBC Beach Office have contacted all beach hut owners with a copy of the regulations. One of the rules is to keep huts in good condition and with a clear number. At the last count there are about 20 defaulters. Are you guilty?

Local ironmonger sells out of padlocks
37 beach huts lost their padlocks on the evening of Monday 28 April. The Beach Office contacted the owners and most of them were replaced by lunchtime Tuesday. No one keeps anything of value in their beach huts these days, but the hassle of repairing the damage makes you wonder.
We gather that the police have their eye on one of the offenders and are looking for witnesses before they drag him off to court.

Beach hut sold for over £5000
Location, location, location. A very run-down beach hut facing the sea at The Strand, Ferring was offered for Ł2500 by Oliver and Saunders, and was eventually sold for twice that. It is the site that costs the money; the hut would cost £2000 including erection and painting. Unfortunately there are no vacant sites along the front; people are even prepared to pay £229 per year to reserve an empty space. Most beach huts are not advertised and are sold on the friends or neighbours.
We gather a hut was sold recently at The Strand, Angmering for £9500, and this is not the highest. There are now several for sale at Goring and Ferring at these sorts of prices.

Ian Miller, who has been a beach inspector in Worthing for 20 years, said there had been a steady flow of calls requesting huts in recent weeks. He said: "We've had a waiting list for the past four or five years. Previous to that you could virtually walk in and rent one 'off the shelf'. "People who have already got them are immediately offered them for the following year. If they say no, we turn to the waiting list." Asked why beach huts were so appealing, Mr Miller said: "They are right on the beach. You can sit there with storage space for crockery and a camping stove to make a cup of tea and hope the sun comes out."

Goring has about 260 beach huts in a single row on the sea wall along the length of the greensward at Marine Crescent. All painted white and viewed from the beach they convey a traditional seaside look to the area. From the land in the early morning, or in the twilight, they mark the sea wall like sharks teeth against the sky.

In gaps every dozen huts, there are comfortable seats for the passers by with a pleasant view of the sea. And a pedestrian path runs along behind the beach huts which is very popular with young families, dog walkers, and simply for residents and visitors taking a stroll.

The Goring Sea Front

Goring sea front is in three parts:

Sea Lane Café to the Plantation - Tamarisk bushes, picnics and ball games
The Goring Gap - open land, green from the sea to the downs, a place for birds and a breath of fresh air.
Yacht Club to Sea Lane Café - beach huts and kites


Ferring Village	The Plantation		Sea Lane Cafe	Jetski Ramp	Yacht Club	West Worthing
	Goring Gap	Tamarisk Bushes	Beach Huts
	Marine Drive		Marine Crescent		Eirene Road

There is a proposal before the council at the moment to build a 2m wide dual cycle-track/pedestrian-path all along the front. This is expressly forbidden in the deed of conveyance dated 1st August 1935 where the greensward and foreshore was transferred to WBC for the benefit and quiet enjoyment of the public.

There are fishing stations at intervals along the sea front. Peter, Paul and David who sell fish at the Alinora Carpark are the only ones we see regularly. The others pay a very small annual rental to the council for a box and parking their boats, and we never see them.

Most years the council have a bulldozer to grade the beach, to make it steeper as a protection against the storms in the Autumn, and more gentle for easy access in the Spring. They warn us that the sea wall will have to be two feet higher in the next 20-50 years to cater for the rising sea levels.

Why have a Beach Hut

A beach hut is a low cost property by the sea. It is a place to store the deckchairs and picnic equipment that otherwise father traditionally carries from the car down to the beach. It is a place to discreetly change into your swimming costume and beach shoes. A sheltered place to brew a cup of tea. A shelter from the wind. And a place to shelter when it rains. A place to chat to friends in other beach huts.

Swimming is best two hours before, and two hours after, high tide, giving sufficient depth of water for swimming, and at the same time an easier entry to the sea avoiding the very high water.

Below the shingle foreshore the tide goes out a very great distance. There is chalky sand for sand castles, not as good perhaps as at Swanage, but fun to make dams and scratch your names. And the many rock pools to fish for small crabs and baby fish. And for horses and dog walking at low tide.

The greensward is used for flying man-lifting kites and para-boarding which is good fun to watch. The Yacht Club is very active with races nearly every weekend. The Jet-skis are far too active, and the locals complain all the time. It is possible to buy jetskis with silencers but there are only a very few of these. Wind-surfing and para-surfing are popular. And when the wind is right, and the waves large enough there are surfboarders at the Sea Lane Café beach.

The view from the beach on a clear day shows the Isle of Wight (40 miles), Selsey Bill (20 miles), the white cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head (30 miles). Goring is not the best place to see ships. Except for trawlers and ships entering and leaving Shoreham and Littlehampton harbours, most of the traffic is just a vague blob on the horizon.

How much does a beach hut cost

Cost of a hut varies and the garden centre will advise, plus painting, foundations and erection. Perhaps about Ł2000 in all. Here at Goring the standard size is 8' high, 8' long, 6' wide but there are variations that have crept in over time. No two huts are alike. Some huts have extensions at the sea side for sun-roofs and slide-out windbreaks. They all have some form of hard surface paving slabs, and owners have few inhibitions about spreading their chairs over next door areas when the neighbours are not down today.

A site rental is payable Ł248 per year to the council. Only one person has not paid from last year - one man in Columbia has paid for an empty site each year by standing order for 12 years. They wrote to him and he replied and said no problem.

Down on Worthing Promenade, beach huts are identical, in short neat rows, and are available for rent costing Ł498 per year, Ł53/week in Summer, Ł28/week in winter.

It is amazing how many huts are seldom if ever used. A situation rather similar to the expensive yachts moored at any of the world's marinas.

The price now said to be Ł3700 or even Ł6000. They would be more expensive at the Yacht Club end and at the Sea Lane Café end - nearer to the ice cream and the loos.

Dogs must be on the lead between the Yacht Club ramp and the Jet Ski ramp. Not that anyone seems to worry. But some owners prefer huts in this area.

To buy or sell a beach hut try the loacl estate agents or put a notice in local shop windows or local papers. As well as on the beach hut itself.

The price at Muddeford said to be Ł35,000. At Whitstable about the same but these have services and drainage.

Goring Beach Huts are white

Colour of your Goring beach hut must be white. At other towns multi-coloured paint is recommended - example at Calshot on the Beaulieu River they are all the colours of the rainbow.

There has been some decoration on the sea side of some huts, and the roof battens are all sorts of exciting colours. Some interiors have been very nicely fitted out, usually with a bench, cupboards, calor-stove. Some huts have a flag that they fly when occupied.

Maintenance.

You should paint each year, certainly the metal work. The sea air is tough on paint. Best to use the best quality exterior paint. If you get a proper man to do it it could cost Ł200-300. Plastic cladding is really not satisfactory; it does not allow the wood underneath to breath. And it will get damaged by stones blown my the wind, and of course vandals.

The roof is traditionally roofing felt, and lasts about two years. Once it starts to tear it will all blow away. One owner used thin sheet metal for the roof, but surprisingly this also suffered from damage in the wind.

There are some local decorators who give agood service looking after beach huts. They can inspect it monthly or quarterly and fix any immediate damage, contacting you with a quote when anything major wants doing.

Names of maintainers

Storms cause damage each year. Most of the huts are new here since most of them blew away on 17 October 1987.

The huts are managed by Worthing Beach Hut Office - telephone 01903-238977. The beach inspectors are Ian, Tim and Mac who are often seen riding up and down on a quad bike. Every hut is supposed to be clearly numbered so the Beach Office can contact the owners if there is a problem. The numbers are a bit random, and some have lost their numbers.

If a hut is badly maintained, the beach office write to the owner reminding them of the terms of their lease, to keep it painted and well maintained. This year they wrote to 30 owners giving them 28 days to effect repairs. And then, for the many that did not improve, they wrote again giving them 28 days notice otherwise their lease would be terminated. So far they have not got around to evicting any owners. About six are now very bad, and another six have problems with their roofs, a situation worse than it has been for many years; most owners look after their huts and are proud of them.

Carol Smileys's Changing Rooms programme on BBC wrote to us to identify a pair of beach huts that they could do up as a competition. We did not have any nominees to suggest as the huts here are very much all the same. On the Beach Huts website (above) BBC 2 wanted to hear about beach hut eating and cooking for a new series about food.

Vandalism is a problem. A race to jump from roof to roof down a row of huts is fun. Two years ago a complete row of huts was adorned each with a letter of the authors name which if I remember was something like Montmerency. Huts get broken into so that the perpetrators can sleep out of the rain. Each year a couple of huts will get torched. Insurance therefore is a good idea, and will cost about Ł100 per year from brokers Towry Law 01568-612351

Fisherman's gear and boats on the sea wall

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Contributed by Richard Waller
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