ASSOCIATION OF FRINTON BEACH HUT OWNERS

In late 1993 the Frinton Residents’ Association (FRA) became increasingly concerned about increasingly large rises in beach hut site rents and a high level of damage to huts through vandalism. The Committee decided to inaugurate a separate Association to deal with these matters. Tendring District Council Leisure Services were extremely supportive of this move and offered their assistance in the form of Mr Nigel Goodier, TDC Leisure Services Manager. An inaugural meeting of beach hut owners was held in February 1994 and agreement was reached to establish such an Association. A Committee was formed with two members also being members of the FRA Committee. Although officially in Walton, owners of huts on The Leas asked to be included as Walton had no Association. The founding members of the Committee consisted of Dr Jack Shields (FRA Representative and Chairman), Eric Cressey (Vice Chairman), Vere Smith (Honorary Treasurer), Peter Ruffey (Secretary), Ray West (Membership Secretary), Jim Leonard (Patrols Officer), Len Brooks (FRA Representative) and David Farthing.

The Association’s first priorities were to establish damage reporting patrols along the length of the seafront and obtain a detailed breakdown of the elements of the licence fee. Jim Leonard quickly recruited volunteer patrollers and patrol areas were set up covering The Walings to the boat slope and The Leas, with the Committee covering the area in between. Support in the form of hand held radios connected to Tendring Care Line were provided by TDC. Committee members also opened sea front gates in the morning and closed them at night in return for a payment from TDC. This money was used to build a fighting fund that still exists today.

The only breakdown of licence fees that could be given was between the actual licence fee and National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) commonly known as Business Rate with VAT being charged against the total. The Association challenged the charging of VAT on NNDR. This resulted in the charges being shown separately with VAT no longer being paid on NNDR. Also, a rebate covering two years’ VAT improperly charged was repaid to all beach hut owners in the District.

Initially, it was believed that most damage occurred at weekends and in fairly defined areas. This opinion was quickly proved wrong. In the first year of patrols, damage was recorded on every day of the week at some time throughout the year on all parts of the front, but it occurred most often on Tuesdays. The number of huts damaged remained over 200, leading to the Committee deciding in 1996 that a local security company should be employed to carry out random patrols along the seafront at night. By the end of that year the numbers were in the low hundreds and have only exceeded 200 twice between then and now. During the whole of this time the Association has worked closely with local police and have received their support.

In the late 1990s, the Association was involved in setting up a Beach Hut Association Forum to represent the interests of members of the five Beach Hut Owners’ Associations in the District who had dealings with TDC. Locally, we assisted boat owners to set up their own Club when TDC attempted to close the boat slope permanently, we joined the FRA, businessmen and others in refurbishing the shelter at the bottom of Connaught Avenue which TDC wished to demolish, and recently we have supported owners on The Walings in successfully resisting attempts, by TDC, to force them to pay for replacing staging that did not require replacing.

Membership has risen over the years from 450 covering 462 huts to the figure in September 2008 of 761 members covering 780 huts out of the total of 1008 beach huts along our seafront.

For further information contact Angela Cox (01255 861348) or Colin Hull (01255 673300).