THE BIG CHANGES NEEDED TO BOOST UK HUTTING
1. Woodlands here are free of inheritance tax, so hutters looking for sites are regularly outbid by wealthy investors. That tax perk needs to go so there’s a level playing field for hutters.
2. Forestry Commission plantations are packed with sitka spruce, but huts need more natural, open, self-regenerating woodland. Plantations near towns and cities could have a small area replanted with native trees for hut sites.
3. Councils in Scotland finally recognise that, for planning purposes, huts are not small houses, but applications are still being rejected. Councils could work with the 1,000 Huts Campaign (as Fife Council and Falkland Estate have done) to slot pilot hut sites into patches of woodland.
4. Britain has the most concentrated pattern of land ownership in the developed world. Land needs to become more affordable and available for huts to thrive – that means serious land reform. 5. Many Norwegian kids go to outdoor kindergarten and all have a day outside per week. This makes the outdoors normal and exciting and builds respect for nature. We need that here, too.
Lesley Riddoch lives in north Fife by the sea. She’s a columnist for The Scotsman and The National newspapers and director of policy group Nordic Horizons. She completed a PhD comparing Scotland and Norway in 2020, owned a hut in the 1990s and is the author ofHuts – A Place Beyond (Luath Press, £9.99). lesleyriddoch.com/books