21st century beach huts
Updated on 20 August 2007
The humble beach hut gets a futuristic makeover.
Along ten miles of beach, from Mablethorpe down to just north of Skegness, strange new structures will soon be in place: beach huts for the twenty first century.
They will take their place alongside the traditional wooden chalets on the Lincolnshire coast.
Hundreds of architects from around the world submitted designs to the county council, which is planning to break with tradition and put up new huts of all shapes and sizes.
The exhibition of models in Sleaford has been drawing in record crowds. The beach hut's never been so popular.
Come rain or shine, for fifty years Pam Newton's been coming to Sutton on Sea, just north of Skegness, to rent one of the 500 beach huts that fringe this stretch of Lincolnshire coast.
The design, a snug three metres squared, hasn't changed in 300 years. But now she and her son have been hearing about plans for a new breed of hut.
Urban artist Michael Trainor has been commissioned to oversee this project to regenerate a stretch of beach once visited by Tennyson and which features in DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.
He says the new beach huts will be dropped next to the old ones, and will only be for rent. The new huts will be in place by the end of the summer.
