BEACH hut rents in Poole could go up a whopping £441 on average over the next three years under plans being considered by the council.

The proposal, which comes before the cabinet for consideration next Tuesday, is for rents to go up 15 per cent every year for the next three years.

There is also the suggestion of opening them up to non- residents – even though the stock of 1,157 beach huts and beach hut sites is already well oversubscribed.

The current waiting list has 500 people on it – equivalent to an average waiting time of eight years – and was closed to new entrants three years ago.

If the new charging plan is approved the average annual rents will go from £846 this year to £1,287 in three years time.

For the most expensive huts with an annual rent of £1,059 that will be even more.

Financially strapped Borough of Poole already makes a surplus of £456,000 from its beach huts. Under the latest plans it will stand to make an additional £439,779 from them by 2013.

The council has said the money raised would help protect frontline services in the face of fierce budget cuts, but plans are likely to cause outrage among beach hut tenants.

Bob Lister, who has had his beach hut at Branksome Chine for eight years, called the planned rises “criminal”, especially given the condition of some huts and facilities, which he described as “very poor” and “badly maintained”.

He said elderly tenants could “struggle to pay”.

Cllr Philip Eades, deputy Liberal Democrat group leader at Borough of Poole, accused the council of squeezing “every last penny from beach hut tenants”.

He said: “Our beach huts should not be just for the richest members of Poole’s population and they should never ever be leased to outsiders.”

Clive Smith, Poole council’s head of leisure services, said they were doing “everything they could to protect frontline services” and increasing charges on services such as beach huts was “unavoidable”.

He said despite the proposed increases Poole beach huts would “continue to represent better value for money than in many other areas” and advised people who felt beach huts were “becoming unaffordable” to “consider short-term letting as an alternative”.