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Authored by: bugstomper on Tuesday, March 19 2013 @ 01:30 AM EDT |
The range in definition of "squatters" is one of the points in the
article.
The article mentions the co-chair of the Conservative Party talking against
"people who come and steal your home while you are on holiday. [...] Shapps
cited some well-publicised recent incidents of homes stolen by squatters,
including that of Oliver Cockerell, a Harley Street doctor, which was occupied
during renovation work while his wife was pregnant."
The article also talks about "Blake and Taylor's group – now numbering 17
or so – cleared their site of 30 tonnes of waste and repaired derelict
greenhouses to live in. They grow organic vegetables, which they sell via the
local grocer. They hold bicycle workshops, arts and crafts sessions and
gardening workshops for the local community [...] They have displaced no one and
the neighbourhood wants them there,"
It is clear which of those the passing of the anti-squatters law was aimed at,
but which will it be used against? The article begins with "Alex Haigh
became the first person to be jailed under section 144 [...] A 21-year-old from
Plymouth, Haigh was arrested for living in a house in Pimlico that had been
empty for over a year." That seems to fall somewhere between the pregnant
couple displaced during their home renovation and the utopian community
reclaiming an abandoned industrial site.
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