Accessible Beach Huts installed in Southsea

Accessible beach huts have been installed along Eastney seafront. The official opening took place on Monday, March 24, 2025.

Transcript

00:00My name is Mark Collings, I'm the Seafront Operations Officer for Portsmouth City Council.

00:04So tell me where we are and what we're doing here today.

00:06So we're down at Easton Beach at the beach huts where we've had four new beach huts installed

00:12that allow people with mobility issues to be able to access the beach huts.

00:17The previous ones to our right have been here for some time but very difficult to get down here

00:22in a wheelchair or if you've got any sort of restrictions.

00:24So we've added some new ones on the end which have got some ramps and make life easy for access.

00:30We've built a nice new path that's wheelchair friendly that allows wheelchairs to cross the shingle

00:35which wasn't possible until this project came about.

00:38How long has this project been sort of in the making?

00:41It's taken about three years to get to this point.

00:43We've had to go through planning permission to add to the beach and we're in a protected beach

00:48so that's really quite hard work to be able to do what seems to be quite a simple project.

00:52So we had to jump through all the planning hoops to be able to do it

00:55and over the last winter we've been able to finally get on with the build.

00:59And tell me what the reaction's been like?

01:01Really positive so far. We've had a couple of people come down and test it

01:05and we've got other people booked in to sort of have a go as well

01:07and I think it's really positive news for people to be able to come find themselves

01:12accessing things that they were once not able to get to.

01:15And I understand you can rent them on a weekly basis, is that correct?

01:19We rent them on a weekly basis throughout the summer, that's right, yep.

01:22And then in the winter we do a weekend hire as well for those that are hardy

01:25and might want to come down in the colder weather.