5^th Feb 2014

The big government scheme to stamp out the ever increasing numbers of illegal "beds-in-sheds" has been stopped in its tracks by a change in National legislation..

Slough Borough Council put together an operation that used high tech by sending out a plane over the town kitted out with the latest thermal technology. The surveillance plane found 600 properties that possibly contained "beds-in sheds" at a cost of £24,000.

Armed with this information from the map, officers hoped to find  to lived-in properties that did not have proper energy performance certificates and subsequently levy fines on the guilty landlords.

At a recent wellbeing board meeting, it was told from a report that initial findings revealed a sample of 150 outbuildings that had been checked to identify whether they had valid certificates  and found out that only one had an EPC.

But a recent change in national legislation has "scuppered" the officers' efforts to bring the irresponsible landlords to court. The change removed the requisite requirement for small ancillary buildings to hold an EPC.

However far from being beaten the officers have turned their attentions to referring those suspected landlords to HMRC for undeclared income, sending out planning enforcement notices and also referring a number of legal outbuildings to the valuation office for collection of due council tax.

The council is still very positive about the operation and denies that the project had been stopped in its' tracks.

A council  spokesman stated that they had already referred landlords to the HMRC to investigate for undeclared income with three outbuildings slapped with notices for removal.

The council's view is that they do not wish to resort to knocking down buildings as it a lengthy and costly process.

The council's spokesman said: “The reaction of landlords to our work has been positive and we’ve not met any resistance at all.”