As our thoughts turn to holidays and with a general upswing in people taking shorter but more frequent breaks, now may be a timely moment to reflect on how one planning change in Scotland could help re-invigorate the staycation sector, with a particular focus on ‘hutting’.  

In her new book Huts: a place beyond, writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch examines how recreational huts have ‘shaped Norway into an outdoors, active, nature-oriented and healthy society’, while the lack of simple countryside retreats in Scotland has ‘kept kids distant from nature… and modest wee holiday homes beyond the means of the average family’.

The book reveals that across the North Sea, a healthy culture of home-country holidaying and exploring an abundance of wild places has been underpinned by the existence of huts, or hytte. These simple, off-grid structures, usually built cheaply and maintained on rented ground by individuals and families, have allowed generations of Norwegians to enjoy being ‘somewhere else’ without breaking the bank or needing a passport. Riddoch sees no reason why we can’t replicate the concept, on an even larger scale, over here. 

In 2014 the Scottish Government enacted national planning policy encouraging local authorities to draft planning policies enabling the development of huts and other recreational structures. For the first time, it meant that the humble hut had some development status in its own right – huts were going places.

Except largely they haven’t.

The demand is certainly there. A successful planning application for the 13-hut site in Carnock Woods in Fife in 2017, for example, prompted over 600 applications.  Reforesting Scotland has been one of the keenest advocates of hutting through its Thousand Huts campaign, but at its sold-out rally in Dundee last year, a straw poll of delegates revealed hundreds were still looking for sites.

So why isn’t hutting taking off, given the level of demand? Well, there are a couple of good reasons. Firstly, there is the issue of land. The Scottish Government defines a hut as an off-grid structure of no more than 30 sq m. This means that, as informal retreats, they are only likely to generate modest rents from individual weekending hutters. Secondly, some local authorities have already pushed back on the idea of huts as private weekend boltholes: in Aberdeenshire Council’s current proposed Plan, the development of single huts not associated with a tourist proposal won’t be supported.

Recent Scottish Government regulations have brought tighter regulation of holiday lets to prevent scarce housing being lost to tourism. But huts do not offer the amenities of a house and therefore are no real threat. Indeed they would simply boost the supply of holiday accommodation, leaving more traditional housing stock for the benefit of host communities. 

Add to the mix that research from Visit Scotland revealed 50 per cent of visitors cited ‘scenic beauty’ and a further 23 per cent ‘getting away from it all’ as their prime reasons for holidaying north of the border and all of a sudden huts begin to seem socially responsible, as well as being oh-so Instagrammable.

Key to allowing hutting to happen at a commercial level though, is making sure sites are planned and managed at a scale where rental income begins to look attractive to landowners. Whether the huts are to be essentially renter-occupied, or renter-sublet for tourism (perhaps by those with the appetite but not the wallet for a Grand Designs-style project), it will be important that on each site hutters organise themselves into a single body for rent collection and management. Savills has already looked at a variety of different development options for landowners and hutters alike.

If properly planned and managed, huts certainly seem capable of providing a regular income, creating affordable recreational living space, lessening the tourism burden on scarce local housing and helping people re-connect with nature. All this within a built form that has minimal carbon impact.

With wellbeing, sustainability, experiential holidays and staycations all trending terms, these little huts could have a much bigger role to play in Scotland’s future than their diminutive proportions might suggest.

Further information

Contact Angus Dodds or Adam Davies

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