Slough Borough Council has become the first local authority to pay for specially adapted planes to fly over the area and provide a thermal imaging map identifying huge numbers of sheds potentially being used to house illegal immigrants.
The council, which has received central government funding to tackle the ‘Beds in Sheds’ epidemic,  reputedly spent up to £24,000 creating a thorough 3D imaging map of every property in the Berkshire town, money which they hope will be recouped in income tax and planning permission fines when the highlighted properties are investigated.
The plane fly-bys picked up 6,350 or so ‘suspicious dwellings’ in the borough and, although many could be loosely described as habitable, the vast majority will be without heating, water or electricity and well below the thermal, sound and fire regulations required for rented accommodation.
Ray Haslam, Head of Environmental Services at Slough Borough Council, commented:
‘The raw data we’ve received from Bluesky is very useful because for the first time it gives us an accurate figure of the number of outbuildings we have in the borough that we need to investigate.
‘People may well be using their outbuildings for legitimate purposes, so we don’t want to rush into assumptions that they’re all being used for housing, but this certainly gives us a good starting point and we’ve already started investigative work.’
The council’s planning enforcement team has the power to force the demolition of illegal dwellings or demand they are returned to their legal use, such as a garage or store room.
Councillor James Swindlehurst, deputy leader and commissioner for neighbourhoods and renewal, is reported to have commented:
‘This issue has been of concern to us locally for some time and I am pleased strong foundations are now in place to enable us to tackle it effectively.
‘Our primary concern is the health and wellbeing of people living in the outbuildings and we will be doing whatever the law allows us to do to protect them and hold rogue landlords to account, as well as enforcing regulations.’
The success or otherwise of the follow up investigations will likely determine whether other councils, particularly those who have also received Government funding to tackle the ‘beds in sheds’ issue, take up the same tactics. Feasibly, there could be aircraft buzzing above all of our towns soon so be sure to remove any suspicious heat sources from your garden sheds!
05/08/2013Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â SRJ/LCB
[contact-form][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’I liked this article’ type=’checkbox’/][contact-field label=’I did not like this article’ type=’checkbox’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’/][/contact-form]