Enfield Council is using aerial maps from Bluesky to identify outbuildings used illegally for residential purposes. The problem of ‘beds in sheds’ is growing, with nearly 40,000 inspections across the UK resulting in over 3,000 landlords facing further enforcement action or prosecution since 2011.
Earlier this year, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced a £5 million boost for councils to tackle rogue landlords, with Enfield Council receiving £360,000 of funding.
Enfield used part of this funding to commission Bluesky to fly the streets of Enfield with a special thermal camera that can capture heat loss values for individual buildings across the entire borough in just one evening. The resulting thermal maps, when combined with aerial photographs, are helping Enfield Council to identify properties with unusual or unexpected heat signatures that may be being used for living accommodation or other unpermitted purposes.
Rob Oles, pollution control and planning enforcement manager, Enfield Council, said, “The thermal imagery, when overlaid with the photography, allows us to identify and target specific areas in the borough where we know there is potentially a problem with rogue landlords.”
