UK Council Hires UAS to Track Illegal Dwellings
As a result of the flood of immigrants from Eastern Europe in to the UK, all sorts of outbuildings are being turned into illegal dwellings. In Slough, Berkshire, the council has spent £24,000 hiring a UAS equipped with thermal-imaging cameras to track down hundreds, possibly thousands, of immigrants who are believed to be sleeping in garages and converted coal bunkers.
In just two hours, homing in on body heat, the drones identified 210 suspicious ‘sheds with beds’. None of these places have planning permission or comply with fire regulations.
Frankly, Slough is fighting a losing battle and has limited options. Ray Haslam, head of environmental services for Slough Borough Council, said: ‘Aerial photography is one of a range of tactics we’re using to crack down on this problem. We will be able to cross-check and see whether they have valid Energy Performance Certificates, which are required by law for places where people live.
‘If they don’t, we will be speaking to landlords and offering some advice and guidance, and enforcing the law if we need to.
‘One option is to repeatedly fine a landlord for not having an EPC. The fine is £200 a day, making it very expensive for people to continue using the outbuilding.’
Is that it? Only in Britain would an invalid or non-existent Energy Performance Certificate be a frontline weapon in the battle against a degrading trade in human misery.
The kind of landlord who will profit from cramming whole families into a converted lock-up — and charge them £100 a week rent for the privilege — is hardly going to be deterred by a fine for a technical breach of the home insulation regulations.
Nor are they likely to be the type of concerned citizen who will respond responsibly to words of advice and guidance from a planning officer.
Never mind heat-seeking spy planes, it’ll take heat-seeking missiles to sort this one out.
Even if the council sends in the bulldozers, the landlords will be back in business in no time and their ‘tenants’ will simply relocate, perhaps to the ever-expanding shanty town in Hendon.
I have every sympathy for Slough, which has been utterly transformed by the mass immigration which followed Labour’s cynical decision to dismantle our borders.
Many of those who arrived in droves from Poland and other neighbouring states are hard-working, pay their taxes and have embraced the British way of life. But I fail to see what people who live in coal bunkers and make a meagre living washing windscreens at traffic lights bring to the party.
What skills do they offer which couldn’t adequately be met by the four million British citizens the Government is currently trying to coax off welfare?
They may have come here dreaming of buying a small suburban semi, with wisteria and a well-tended rose garden.
But they are prepared to live in a shack made from washing machine crates and bin liners. The Romanian beggars and scam artists who have settled in London’s West End are happy to sleep under the stars, with only a dry-cleaning bag as a duvet.
The Government knows there is a serious problem, which is why it has given Slough a £200,000 grant to tackle it.
Image: Thermogram image shows data from a thermal imaging camera – Bluesky International Ltd
Source: The Daily Mail
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