£300,000 price tag for remote beach hut

Beach hut silly season continues as people plan ahead for next summer with the latest hut at Mudeford Spit, Christchurch, hut 180 on with Denisons for £300,000 (plus annual rates to the local counsil of £500 and a licence fee of £2,500). According to the particulars it is "a beautifully presented LARGER THAN AVERAGE hut having the benefit of front and rear UNINTERRUPTED VIEWS."

The hut is 16ft x 12ft with direct access to the beach and was renovated 15 years ago, though there is still no water, electrics, nor lavatory. It does have a kitchen though "luxuriously fitted out with a range of units incorporating limed wood cladding to the walls and ceiling". At a push, the hut sleeps eight and unlike some beach huts, it's legal to sleep here for up to seven months in a calendar year.

One of the advantages of the hut is its isolation (except it is of course a public beach). As the Daily Mail says: "The 350 beach huts on the sandspit are so remote they require a 30 minute walk or a ride on a novelty land train to get to them."

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Former Victorian railway station waiting room garden office for sale

Here's a remarkable shedworking opportunity. The owners of the former 1860s railway station buildings in Coalport, Telford (very close to where the Shedworking staff were born as well as the famous Ironbridge) is up for sale. In recent years, the whole property has been renovated and two mark 1 Great Western Railway carriages restored run as holiday lets - I stayed in one of them five years ago and it was a marvellous experience (the owls outside in the 2.5 acres of grounds were a bit noisy though).

Best of all though, the former brick-built waiting room - pictured top - has been turned into an open plan garden office measuring 6m x 3m.

The whole thing - including the five-bedroom house - is on the market with Strutt & Parker for £950,000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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David Cameron's shepherd's hut in Private Eye

Find out what happens next in the latest issue of Private Eye, out now.

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Garden offices, broadband, and living in the country: new report

Millions of city dwellers are being put off relocating to the countryside by concerns over bad broadband and mobile phone reception, while large portions of those already living in rural areas experience these issues to such an extent they regret moving there, according to a new report from uSwitch.com.

This is obviously not great news for shedworkers and those planning to work from garden offices in rural locations and comes despite Ofcom reporting that almost all of the country should be able to access superfast connections. Its research claims that more than 13 million city dwellers would like to live in the countryside in the future - but for the 15 million who wouldn’t, more than half are put off by the thought of poor broadband connections and patchy phone signal.

Although Ofcom claims that 93% of the country can already access superfast broadband services, four in 10 of rural residents suffer from a slow or unreliable connection. And when it comes to using a mobile at home, a third say that their calls regularly cut out, while a quarter say they can’t make any at all. In total, more than one million people - roughly a tenth of all those currently living in the countryside - say they would never have moved there had they known how poor rural connectivity is.

Ernest Doku, broadband and mobiles expert at uSwitch.com, said: “It’s ludicrous that in 2018 broadband and mobile phone signal is a factor influencing where in the UK people choose to live. In recent years there have been massive strides made in the rollout of superfast services and mobile reception provision, so it’s hard to imagine why so many people continue to struggle along on a service that doesn’t meet their needs.

"The only explanation is that providers have been guilty of a ‘build it and they will come’ mentality - simply assuming that their work is done as soon as they have provided the infrastructure for faster services and not doing enough to make sure that their customers are aware that better services are available."

uSwitch encourages consumers to check the broadband speed of any potential property before deciding where to move, which can be done here.

Image courtesy  Cabin Habit  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Green roofs and Shedworking in The Idler

The new issue of The Idler magazine is out now featuring my usual column on sheds and garden offices which this time takes a look at the very popular option of a green roof featuring examples from Rotunda Roundhouses and eDEN Garden Rooms (pictured below). Those interested in snooker too will also find something of interest in my other column in the magazine which focuses on nostalgia and how to choose a snooker partner.

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Garden office for psychotherapist

A wonderful garden office which rather reminds the Shedworking staff of the one featured heavily in the recent BBC comedy-drama Wanderlust. This one was built by Booths Garden Studios and is owned by psychotherapist Emma Todd as you can see in the video below.

The aim was to make it both completely independent of her house (the reason for a lavatory and kitchen) but also homely so that clients would feel at home. Features include full-length windows with a fanlight window in the bathroom, a flyover roof with gravel in front of the building rather than decking, and movement-sensitive lights to light the way during darkness. An external air conditioning unit is carefully hidden round the side.

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Last year for the Beach Hut Advent Calendar

After a decade of opening beach hut advent calendar doors every day during advent along the promenade at Brighton and Hove, Beyond Church have announced that this will be the last year they do so as they will be developing other projects. It's had a good run - one year I did a daily update for The Independent when they first started - and we've been delighted here at Shedworking to preview and report back on each year's beach huts.

It was created to remind people of the Christian roots of the season of Advent. Over the years they have served more than 4,000 warm drinks and 3,000 mince pies. You can see this year's timetable at their site here and we'll be highlighting some of our favourites during December, This year the theme is #FollowtheStar which links to the Church of England's Christmas campaign.

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