Beach huts ruined in blaze

Appliances from Bexhill and Hastings were called to the scene at 5.03am, and had the fire under control by around 7am.

Nobody was hurt in the blaze, which was about half a mile east of Galley Hill.

Ann Novotny, of Croft Road, Hastings, owned one of the affected huts.

She said: "There's nothing left at all, they are absolutely burned to the ground.

"I had six huge railway sleepers going around the hut and two of those are burnt completely through."

Ann has owned a hut in the area for ten years.

She and two friends bought this most recent one for 3,500 three years ago, and until Wednesday morning shared it with a further three friends on a casual basis.

It was built by the owner of the neighbouring beach hut, which was unaffected by the blaze.

Ann, who pays 300 each year to Hastings Council for the site, said: "I was phoned by the council at 8am on Wednesday morning. We went down at 10am and it was just charcoal, absolutely nothing salvageable - I think we found one black spoon."

Though Ann's hut was insured, she will not recover the full cost of the building.

She said: "I would urge how important it is to get insurance, because this happens all the time. If I sold the hut today, it would fetch around 7,000 and that's without any facilities except water.

"One in our group went for eleven thousand."

She plans to build another, and says the support of local people has been "fantastic".

"A man next to me told me that he had a sink in his garage I could have, and a lady has mentioned some chairs. I've come across a decent carpenter who might build it for me. It's been lovely in that way."

"I'd gone into the sea the week before. As soon as it was nice day we'd just drop everything and go.

"I don't know who did it, but they've got nothing out of it except watching it burn."

Crew Commander Dave Smith attended the scene from Bexhill Fire Station.

He said: "We don't know yet know the cause of the blaze, but it was very damaging.

"One of the huts was metal-framed, and was blown from its foundations whilst still alight."