A student has lost two years of course work and camera equipment worth hundreds of pounds in a fire at a shred house in Blackpool.
Firemen spent six hours at the blaze in the three-storey terraced house.
They also rescued a bearded dragon lizard and two rare oriental toads kept as pets inside.
The fire started in the loft. No one was hurt.
“Our contract was not due to start until September so we hadn’t purchased home insurance yet and cannot claim for our losses,” Lauren Hough, 21, a wildlife photography student at Blackpool and the Fylde College, told local media. “I’ve lost notes and coursework from the previous two years, clothes and new furniture I had bought. “My housemate lost a television and DVD player, and another who is a musical theatre student lost all of her dance equipment.”
Developer built ‘secret’ letting rooms in flat
A property developer who secretly built three extra rooms in to a flat with planning permission for two bedrooms faces enforcement action from a council.
The student landlord claimed the room sizes at the first floor flat in a terraced house in Stoke reflected room sizes offered to students at halls in Staffordshire and Keele universities.
Planners granted the landlord permission to build an extension in 2007 to create the two bed flat.
Instead of following the plans, the landlord changed the lay out to make three bedrooms and two bedsits, all rented individually to students.
One room measured a tiny six square metres, compared to a recommended 10 to 15 square metres.
A retrospective planning application was discussed by Stoke city councillors but rejected the proposals because the accommodation was considered substandard.
They heard council officers describe the bedrooms as small, cramped and dingy.
Enforcement action to realign the lay out of the property with the original planning permission will start shortly.
