BCP beach hut owners to be charged full council tax rate

Beach hut owners will have to pay full council tax on what are being described as their “second homes” from April, a council has said.

The new charge affects more than 300 properties at Mudeford Spit and Hengitsbury Head in Dorset.

The beach huts will no longer be eligible for a council tax reduction and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council said it hopes to raise more than £211,000 as it tries to set a balanced budget.

The council said it is facing a shortfall of almost £9m and money raised from the changes will help to support under-pressure local services.

BCP Council said the plans would mean 344 beach huts being reclassified as second homes and that they would be in the lowest council tax band.

The huts, that can be stayed in overnight for part of the year, often sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

One Mudeford beach hut was sold in 2025 for £485,000 within 24 hours of it being listed for sale.

Cabinet member for Finance, councillor Mike Cox said the scheme will only generate a fairly small amount, compared to the council’s current financial position.

“It is a small amount,” he said “but we have to pull every lever we’ve got and this is just one of them. But I do appreciate it will affect quite a few people quite a lot”.

Cox added: “I understand their pain. It is a significant increase in terms of the percentage, but it’s a relatively small amount of money in terms of the value of the property they’re sitting on.”

He admitted that other council services could face cuts ahead of the budget being set next month.

“There’s plenty of plans but none of them have been decided yet. We are looking at every nook and cranny of the council to see what we can throw at the problem we’ve got,” he said.