Oxfordshire Woodland Group

Reforesting Scotland's campaign for ""A Thousand Huts" is underway in Scotland with the aim to ensure that the planning rules recognise the right for citizens to enjoy the recreational, health and social benefit of being able to build and own a modest countryside retreat.

A good number of rustic huts were built in the Carbeth area to the west of Bearsden, Glasgow now over half a century ago employing such materials as corrugated iron and low impact simple block foundations.

The occupants maintain their cabins to a high visual standard.

Some of these huts are now being replaced with timber cabins.

Hut design is kept simple and impact on the landscape is minimal with no great infrastructure in evidence. The land does not belong to the hut owners and thus this system of building is similar to Chattel House ownership that was prevalent for a long time in The West Indies.

Elsewhere in Scotland a more refined approach to introduce the concept of log building has been employed to very good effect.

It would appear that there is now a groundswell in the movement to build small huts / cabins in countryside areas and that the designs for same can be quite varied.

Ken Hume

On the 14th November 2015 Reforesting Scotland - thousand hut campaign announced that the Scottish Government has opened a consultation on a proposed amendment to the building regulations that could make it simpler and more affordable to build a small, low impact hut for recreational use.

Currently huts and bothies have to meet building regulations in full, adding significant cost to their construction, however, this consultation presents several ways to reduce the regulatory burden on building huts and bothies. One option under consultation is a proposal that huts and bothies should become exempt from the building regulations (with some exceptions). This exemption would be based on the creation of a new building type for huts and bothies, and a requirement that they are constructed in a way that meets key health and safety considerations. Reforesting Scotland's upcoming publication 'The Good Practice Guide to Hut Building' could provide guidance to help hut builders meet this requirement.

Reforesting Scotland welcomes the consultation, and is currently drawing up their response to it, which will be circulated to the Thousand Hut network. Reforesting Scotland would encourage Thousand Hut supporters to look at the consultation papers and make their responses by 12 February 2016.

Several significant concerns about the content of the consultation have been raised so far, including that the proposal appears to exclude huts that have a sleeping platform. Sleeping platforms are a standard feature in huts and bothies. Ways of addressing this and other concerns are welcome.

Examples of some Scottish recreational huts can be seen in the Thousand Hut Campaign website Gallery.

The Scottish Government is making an important step towards helping to facilitate a new wave of simple, sustainable, small, low impact huts and bothies. If a positive and constructive amendment goes through it could help enable people of all income brackets to access nature, recreation and tranquility with their friends and families, in a way that would surely benefit society as a whole over the coming years.

Ken Hume