Richard Harris stands on the sand at Mudeford Spit, hands in his pockets, looking out at the grey winter sea. In a few days, he will turn 76, and for nearly four decades, this narrow strip of Dorset coastline has been part of his family’s life. “I bought it in 1988,” he says, nodding towards his beach hut, a modest blue timber cabin perched on the sand. “I can’t remember the exact price, but it was between £10,000 and £15,000. We just stuck it on the mortgage.”

Today, huts like his sell for half a million pounds. Some have gone for even more. Yet Richard still sees it not as a luxury asset, but as a family refuge – a place where his grandchildren now spend their summers, just as his own children once did. Inside, small swimsuits hang from hooks, frozen in time during the off-season. “All our grandkids come here in the summer,” he says, smiling. “That’s what it’s always been about. Cheap holidays, family time, being by the sea.” Now, that tradition feels under threat.

From April, Mudeford’s beach hut owners will be charged full council tax after Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council voted to classify the huts as second homes. For Richard, that could mean paying around £5,500 a year once licence fees and taxes are combined.

“It’s not a house, is it!” he says, incredulous. “We’ve got no toilets, no facilities. You can only stay overnight for eight months of the year. So it’s hardly a holiday home.”

Between November and the end of February, staying overnight is prohibited. In winter, the beach empties, and the huts become little more than brightly painted boxes battered by wind and salt.

“So it’s hardly a second home,” Richard repeats. “People don’t spend time on the beach in the winter, do they?”

He worries the council is judging owners by the market value of the huts rather than by who actually owns them. “Anyone buying one now has to be wealthy,” he says. “But we weren’t wealthy. We’re still not. We bought it so my wife could stay here with the kids in the school holidays.”

He shakes his head at the current prices. “It’s crazy – half a million for a 15 by 10 shed. I couldn’t afford that now. You can buy a full family home for that.”

And yet, he feels the policy is designed around those headline prices. “They assume because the huts are worth a lot of money, people who own them have got lots of money,” he says. “Most of us haven’t. It just feels like a money-grabbing scheme.”

Still, he is not blind to the council’s predicament. “They were left in a real mess and they’ve got to recoup it somehow,” he admits. “But give us a break.”

For many on Mudeford Spit, which sits just across the water from the old fishing village of Mudeford that’s long since been swallowed up as part of Christchurch, Richard’s story is typical: families who bought decades ago, before the huts became some of Britain’s most expensive, and who now feel trapped by escalating costs.

Walking her dog along the quiet winter shoreline, Emma Oddbury, 45, says the council’s classification misses the reality of how the huts are used. “You’ll hardly see anyone here in the winter,” she says. “It’s not a second home. There are only so many days you can actually stay in the beach huts.”

She stayed in one over the summer and loved it, but says it is far from a year-round residence. “It gets boiling at night. You can’t really stay there all the time even if you wanted to.”

For Emma, the huts are part of the community’s fabric, not investment properties. “They’re nice, they’re part of the place. But calling them homes just doesn’t fit.”

Ellen Phelps, 69, who has lived in Bournemouth her entire life, is more blunt. “We have such few pleasures in life,” she says. “Why does the council feel the need to charge second-home taxes on this? There are no loos or running water – how can you class it as a second home?”

She worries the policy will erode what makes Mudeford special. “The beach gets rammed in the summer. Families, kids, locals. This is part of people’s lives.”

Others see deeper consequences. Gavin Hastings, 51, who works on the huts, believes rising costs will accelerate a quiet social shift. “All this does is push prices up, pushes local families out, and that’s when you get hedge fund managers moving in,” he says.

“You have families who have used the huts for years who have to rent or sell because they can’t afford the ground rent. These are elderly grandparents. If they want to keep the nice family environment, they have to bring the taxes back down.”

Yet, the council insists the policy is about fairness and financial necessity.

Councillor Mike Cox, the council’s cabinet member for finance, said: “BCP Council, like all local authorities across England, faces an unprecedented, ongoing financial crisis and the latest government settlement does not address this.

“As a result of this severe financial pressure, the council must use all levers at its disposal to raise funds to protect essential services important to our residents.

“Beach huts on Mudeford Spit often sell for between £400,000 and £575,000 – more than the £313,000 average price, according to the Office for National Statistics, of a home in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, yet historically, owners have been given discounts on council tax.

“And, while we welcome all those who want to enjoy our beautiful coastline, we must recognise that this brings extra demand for services such as beach cleaning and flood protection – the cost of which is mostly borne by our residents.

“This change delivers fairness and consistency for all owners of second homes in the area.

“We understand this change may be disappointing for some owners, but it is important to apply council tax policy consistently and fairly across the BCP area.”

Dan Storey, 48, a self-employed technical landscaper who works on the spit, sees both sides. “If they’re going to charge them, it would be more equitable if they could stay the full 12 months,” he says. “Or put a covenant on it so people can’t live here permanently. That would stop the problem of people turning them into homes.”

He says residents feel blindsided. “Pretty much unanimously against it. They feel like it was a choice made without consultation.”

He also explains why infrastructure is limited. “They’re not allowed running water because you’d need sewerage as well, which you can’t do,” he says. “It’s a protected site and a national monument. Putting in that infrastructure would cost millions.”

In a council meeting, Darren Pidwell, chair of the Mudeford Sandbank Beach Hut Association, attempted to dissuade the council from following through with its decision.

He said: “We are frustrated that BCP Council are again targeting Mudeford Sandbank hut owners to raise additional revenue and with no prior consultation. Annual costs will rise by 24%, to £5,200 pa, doubling since April 2023. For many, this will become a significant financial burden.

“This is additional to the 2023 harmonisation increases, when we were told that a significant proportion of that money raised would be invested into beach facilities. None happened, the infrastructure is now almost untenable.

“The huts have no mains water, electricity or sanitation. Public toilets and standpipes have to suffice. They can be occupied for only eight months of the year. How can these be considered as ‘homes’? What is the legal basis for the council tax?

“We recognise the council’s difficult financial position, but further penalising hut owners is no longer fair or viable. This proposal must therefore be rejected.”

For Richard, however, the debate feels less about policy and more about identity. Mudeford’s huts have long been symbols of a democratic seaside culture as simple shelters for ordinary families. The idea that they are now being treated like luxury second homes sits uneasily with that history.

“We bought it for cheap holidays,” he says. “That’s all it was. Now people look at it and think we’re sitting on a fortune. But it’s not like that.”

He worries about what happens next. “Some people will have to sell,” he says. “They just won’t be able to afford it. And once locals go, they won’t come back.”

As the winter light fades over the spit, the huts stand silent, their pastel colours dulled by salt and wind. In a few months, they will again fill with laughter, barbecues and children running across the sand. But for Richard and many others, there is a growing fear that the people inside those huts will change – fewer families, fewer locals, more investors.

For now, Richard locks up his hut and walks back across the beach, past rows of cabins that once represented simple seaside escape, quietly accepting the changing tides.