Beds in sheds latest?

Man dies in Park Rd (Uxbridge) outbuilding fire

http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/LatestInc ... fzrU1N5Gzw

Very sad

Perhaps Hillingdon and adjoining councils would now seriously consider a joint operation to visit know areas with shed with beds, no notice, just a 6:00am knock at the door. Rogue landlords and Illegal Immigrants is what they will find, in droves.

The laws need changing for that. Councils have to give 48 hours notice before an inspection can legally take place. That gives everybody time to get rid of all the evidence of people living there.

I agree and I would go even further and place the inspection powers to the fire service and not the council. The fire service have developed their approach to fire prevention (now called fire safety) and station crews carry out a huge amount of community fire safety aimed at preventing fires in homes.

It seems logical to me that inspection powers for 'sheds' (ie suspect unauthorised dwellings) would fit nicely within the community fire safety strategy. In addition, fire crews are often available 24/7 to cover any allegations of infringements immediately. Indeed, at present, the fire service will get personnel to commercial premises where safety allegations have been made within two hours, so why not extend that to dwellings?


Just to clarify, this Park Rd fatal fire might not be a true beds in sheds situation, but it sounds similar

It will take a serious incident with several deaths before the authorities will act.

If they were to act arbiterally it would be seen as racist as the beds in sheds issue tends to affect mainly the ethnic population.

This Country is not grown up yet enough yet to go down that route. Hell only this week a dinner lady with 11 years service was sacked for accidentally serving a pork chop to a muslim child.

Isn't that Hillingdon's raison d'etre?

Any outside building found to be an illegal dwelling should be demolished there and then.

10 mins to remove your possessions then it's coming down.

We are far too soft

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Lets be careful out there !

This rule about councils having to give 48 hours notice, is this actually written into law or is it a guideline? This should be changed as it completely defeats the point of the checks. Is it the council doing the inspections or UKBA (or whatever it's called now)?

There have been many stories recently of councils in nearby districts using thermal imaging drones to locate outbuildings being illegally let, in Slough:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2381451/Slough-spy-plane-detects-6-000-illegal-beds-sheds-thermal-imaging.html

And in Wembley:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2347667/The-drones-way-Wembley-.html

This would be a very beneficial exercise to carry out in Hillingdon and Ealing, these boroughs are absolutely teeming with illegal immigrants. Any ideas how residents can apply pressure to the local councils to carry this out? Illegal immigrants use services they are not entitled too and consequently will make your council tax higher.

Illegal immigration is illegal, outbuildings with no planning permission are illegal, not declaring rental income to HMRC is illegal, so before anybody starts throwing the 'racist' word around, please bear in mind that illegal activity is illegal regardless of colour, creed or ethnicity.

If you are aware of beds in sheds in your area, or outbuildings that look dodgy, you can always call the council on 01895 250230 and report it. This is our borough and we all should play our part in helping to clean it up!

Some people call it 'Civic Duty'.

and with Boris pushing thru the London wide cuts that will see Hayes fire station losing a pump and around 25 crew, we are all that little bit more as risk from fire - not just the sheds in beds folk

They reported that in the last decade fire incident numbers have halved.

With these illegal houses I'm surprised.

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Lets be careful out there !