District councillor claims the proposal for beach huts in Salcombe could still be a possibility despite objection from the town.

While discussing the budget changes for the South Hams, district councillor Simon Wright, handed a leaflet round to Salcombe Town Council which suggested ways the district council could generate more of an income. One of the possibilities was the building and letting of beach huts.

Cllr Long asked Cllr Wright what the situation was with the “absurd” proposal of the beach huts at South Sands and North Sands. The idea had been raised at an Executive Committee meeting of SHDC and met with resistance when raised at a Salcombe town council meeting in December last year.

Cllr Wright said the location for the proposed beach huts “could be anywhere at the moment”. He said he hadn’t seen any papers about where the proposed beach huts could be located and right now “everywhere is up for grabs”.

Cllr Long said he was “lost for words” at the possibility that people could propose building beach huts in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Cllr Wight said the “biggest beach hut we have is the Winking Prawn” at North Sands, a successful business trading as a beach hut. To this, the mayor and Cllr Long claimed the Winking Prawn was not trading as a beach hut. Thus, the possible introduction of beach huts to North Sands would be a new initiative.

The mayor reminded the councillors that when the town council had discussed the idea before, they had objected to it and Cllr Lang said he thought the majority of residents in Salcombe would think the same way.

However, Cllr Wright said since the idea was first raised, SHDC had “quite a number of people actually expressing an interest”. But, he said the proposal was certainly a long way away from a final decision.