Episode 3 Inside Out

Hi, I'm a Elaine Dunkley, and welcome to Inside Out.

Over the next few weeks we will be bringing you in-depth reports

on some of the best stories from around England.

Coming up: We speak to the people whose

homes have been wrecked by sinkholes.

Are changes in the tax and benefit system likely

And tattooing, it's becoming increasingly popular,

but just how clean and safe is it to go under the needle?

Sinkholes, they appear without warning and are becoming

more common, and it may surprise you to know,

if you're buying a house, a survey wouldn't necessarily tell

you there could be problems underground.

David Whiteley from Inside Out East has been out to get some answers.

Back in October, a giant sinkhole literally swallowed

up this street in a city in Hertfordshire, cutting power

Actually, it's only when you get up close to it, you get an idea

Look, you have pipes hanging off here, bricks that have falling in.

Building work has happened here and they have refilled

much of the sinkhole, but if you live around here,

in one of these houses surrounding here, the worry

is surely is, could another hole just like this appear

I'm going to find out why this happened and what we might do

We went out the front, and we could see, we couldn't get

near because they had already put fencing round,

but we could see it was a massive thing.

There were people out there crying, in a terrible state.

Rosemary and Derek have lived here for nearly 40

They, like other families on the street, were moved out

But even now, things are still a struggle.

You go into town, a path takes you to the main road and then

you walk into town, but it has been muddy sometimes,

And there is as shuttle service, is there Derek?

That's here only way we can get across to the fire

The hole was caused by the surface of an old

Across this part of the country there are lots of old chalk pits

making the area prone to holes opening up.

Where I am used to be a chalk mine, in fact up until the 19th-century

a lot of our region actually sits on chalk, but it is this chalk

that is making are susceptible to sinkholes.

And it is the combination of old mines and rain

The bad news is that heavy rain is making it worse.

In Hertfordshire there have been six major collapses

One of these typical holes in the ground in this area around

That's right, they are quite surprising, aren't they?

So what we need to do to protect our homes?

I've come to Stevenage to meet sinkhole expert Doctor Clive

This town has also had its share of holes in the past.

like this in the ground, but this is a sinkhole.

Yes, it is a pretty big hole, and it's probably been here a long,

long time and probably relates to perhaps the late 1700s,

early 1800s, when chalk was being excavated out and mined

We are getting a lot of nature at the moment.

Can you seeing the problem becoming exacerbated,

because of their change in our weather patterns?

You had increased chances of holes appearing when you have wetter

We have more concentrated rainfall for prolonged periods,

that weakens and softens the ground, so it does make the chances of holes

This is what happened in Hemel Hempstead two

And this is what engineers' cameras found up to 17

Truckloads of concrete had been pumped

underground, and the two houses closest to the hole have been

demolished, but as you can see, work has continued here

This was also the site of a clay pit and residents

here were told the hole was triggered by very wet weather.

This was the initial stages, and over the next couple of days it

just started falling away even further.

So more and more fell away with time.

When it goes, you don't know how deep it

David went through six months of hell.

I was not myself for those six months.

I was not the person I wanted to be or anybody wants to see

me be, because I was so stressed and taking it out on the people

By coincidence, both had their properties up for sale

When the sinkhole happened I lost buyers.

I had a cash buyer at the time, obviously she walked away.

Dr Edmonds believes councils need to demand that developers make extra

They have heightened awareness of flooding issues,

and equally they should be aware that

with the changing weather patterns there is a greater chance

of collapses of the ground occurring,

so they should be demanding more developers to address such hazardous

The good news is, there is already information that can help.

Dr Edmonds has mapped where there are historic chalk

This may prove invaluable in the future for developers

On the map here, we are close to this red dot, which is this

The one over here on the left, that's one that has presented itself

The others are prospectively where mines are recorded or believed

to be present, based on the historical

This information is vital to anyone who wanted to build

in these areas, because you would look at that and see potentially

The dots do identify features in the ground which need to be

You may be surprised to know that when you are buying a house,

your survey may not show up chalk mines.

The surveys, when they came back, all they check for is coal

If there are no coalmines, you don't get anything.

Which isn't great, because round this area

there are so many old clay pits and chalk

mines which people are not really aware of, because the surveys don't

David actually did his own DIY survey before looking

When I sold, eventually, and bought my new property,

I looked at the maps we were given links

to via what had happened here,

and looked and what was on those sites, because I knew

the survey was going to pick it up, because they don't

David and Richard are now very cautious.

Once it happens to you and you will always have it in the back

When you are looking for property you

They have now both sold their homes and

Back in St Albans, Hertfordshire County Council

is still checking their no more cavities.

These chalk mines are supposed to be 1820-1830, I mean who would think

150 years later that this would happen?

Rosemary and Derek can't wait for the disruption

Staying with housing, there are 2 million private buy

Many are ordinary working people trying to boost their income

But are changes to the tax and benefit

system likely to cause some private landlords to give up?

Rachel Royce reports from the south-east of England.

Collecting the rent at Pavilion Court is a weekly

Mac lives in the block by Folkestone Harbour himself,

but owns a couple of the properties and manages 80

A lot of the tenants currently have most of their rent paid directly

?340 every four weeks, but Mac collects a small top up,

New tenant Richard Barnes has just moved

Mac is confident he will pay his rent on time,

but not all his tenants are like that.

Mac is concerned about changes to the

benefit system, which are being rolled out across the country.

The changes mean his tenants will now

get paid all their housing benefit directly and have to pay Mac

He is worried that some of them won't pay up.

They are the less fortunate people in life, why try to help.

Now when the government give the money, they

either have an alcohol problem or an addictive problem,

They will not give me their rent money.

By past experience, I know that they won't give me

So I won't have the money to keep this

building the way it's kept now, I and I will go bust.

There is provision in the new rules for

landlords to be paid directly if tenants are registered addicts,

but Mac fears that some will fall through that net and get into rent

Mac took me to meet another one of his tenants.

Ziggy was homeless and slept rough the three

months before she moved into Pavilion Court.

I am very privileged to live here, because without Mac I

would still be sleeping rough on the streets.

One of the things that will be happening if the council

is going to start paying the rent money

No, I prefer it direct to the landlord because I'm useless

with money, because I'm a big drinker.

So you would prefer it to stay like that?

Landlords often get a bad press, but there are some genuine

worries that we are going to look at.

For instance, changes to the benefit system are not the only concern

From this April there is to be an additional 3%

stamp duty for anyone buying a second property.

But its clause 24 of the Finance Act which is being

phased in from April next year, that is causing even greater concern

Under clause 24, many landlords will be taxed on the whole

of their rental income, without being able to offset

all of their mortgage interest costs.

It's a little bit complicated, but will

affect many landlords who have borrowed money for buy to let.

Chris Morris is Head of Policy for the

National Landlords Association, which represents private landlords.

This is probably the biggest piece of bad news, certainly that I've

seen in my time, probably the biggest change to the way

landlords will be able to invest in property

since the beginning of buy to let in the late 1990s.

This will affect those landlords who already have property,

because quite frankly the way they are changing,

planning to change the way landlords pay tax, will mean many landlords

are paying tax than more than 100% of their profits.

Clause 24 doesn't affect companies with more than 15

properties, but it will affect ordinary people who have large

Daniel is 37 and works in a local gym.

He had hoped to build a small property portfolio

He bought his first home 13 years ago.

This modest terraced house near to his parents home.

It's now a buy to let and he has a second buy to let property

He lives in this home that he shares with his wife

I bought my first house and lived in it for many

I found I could take some money out of it to buy another property,

Moved into the new property, keeping my old one and

then over time when the property values have gone up,

I've managed to pull some money out to buy another.

At the moment he makes ?2500 a year profit from his buy to lets.

But when clause 24 comes into being,

he's calculated he will only take home around ?400,

and that's only if interest rates don't go up.

If that happened, would either have to put

up his rents, if he can, or he fears subsidise his tenants

from his own wages to live in his houses.

It's not affecting big business, it's not affecting the super

wealthy, but people like myself, who are just trying to provide

But in his last budget, George Osborne

said that he was making the tax change to create fairness.

First will we create a more level playing

field between those buying a home to let, and those who are buying

Buy to let landlords have a huge advantage in the market

as they can offset their mortgage interest payments against their

What you think the impact of clause 24 will be on the housing market?

I think this is one of the things the Chancellor hasn't really

They seem to think the effect will be negligible and will

From the research we do with our members, we predict that

something like 600,000 landlords will have to exit the market.

The Government has made the move because it is worried about the fall

in home ownership among younger people.

The Treasury told the BBC they are taking strong action

by restricting the mortgage reliefs available to landlords we have

removed the unfair advantage that they enjoyed over others trying

Only one in five landlords are expected to pay more

tax as a result of the reform, and they will still enjoy generous

tax relief to help with the upkeep of

Chris Cooper is a landlord who's has decided

to challenge the Government over clause 24, together with another

landlord he is seeking a judicial review.

They've raised finance through an online appeal

which was supported by more than 700 other

It's a good point that not many people will complain about taxes,

or if they do that accept the fact they have to pay tax.

I accept that I need to pay tax as well, but...

If somebody was asked to pay all their salary in tax so they had

nothing left at the end of that, I think

At Pavilion Court Mac is thinking about

selling up and moving to the Philippines.

Daniel is also considering what to do and may walk away from his two

Its 600,000 private landlords to leave

the buy to let business, will it mean tenants like Ziggy face

in the UK, but how do you know if you will be safe if you go

One council in the north-west has introduced a new

ratings scheme after discovering filthy where some customers had

There used to commemorate events and loved ones.

Remind ourselves of life mantras or mark a turning point

What are some of the worst things you have seen in premises?

There was one where there was no sterilisation because there were no

electrical facilities within the certain premise,

so people who were having body piercing done were being

done so effectively with dirty utensils and equipment.

We've seen young people being tattooed.

We've seen dirty equipment, we've seen

cigarette packets and part eaten food lying around,

generally filthy conditions, where skin is being

broken, it is a disaster waiting to happen.

Sean from Blackpool booked in for an eight hour tattoo

It went as normal, just like any other

tattoo, but an hour, an hour and a half after I had it

done, I just felt really dizzy, I had a headache,

He became worried that his arm had become infected

After about a week, a week and a half,

it started to go really hard and you could feel a gel

Because of the size of the tattoo it was pretty much my whole

After it started to scab over I noticed that the scab was kind

of peeling up and there was thick yellowy goo coming out of my arm.

Sometimes you would push down and there would be bits of blood

There was no way that this was part of the healing

process, especially considering I've had loads of tattoos before.

So I went to A and they took all the skin where I'd had my tattoo

It was stinking, it really smelt, it was horrible.

Sean was put on gas and air to help ease the pain.

They did say they had never seen anything like it before.

They had seen bad tattoos but nothing as bad as mine.

Blackpool has been nicknamed the tattoo

It has 53 premises registered to carry out

tattoos, body piercings and semipermanent make-up.

Making up one shop for every 3000 people in the these

a new scheme to ensure that all registered premises are given

Stickers showing the ratings should be

Tim says the major problems they encountered

in Blackpool revolve around a general lack of knowledge.

survive just doing the bare minimum, we've decided to intervene and raise

the bar, because it's in the interests of all locals

and visitors to the results, to have a safe

Public-health experts have been forced to contact

customers to arrange precautionary testing to ensure they have not been

put at risk of serious infections or diseases when incidents

We have people who have been disfigured and

we have, we are aware of people who have contracted blood-borne

viruses, through having these procedures done

when the equipment hasn't been sterilised prior to use.

Fortunately, infection with HIV is rare and we

haven't seen that from any of these procedures,

but we have seen people who have acquired hepatitis B and hepatitis C

infections from having these procedures done.

Do you think the fact that the industry is

largely self-regulating, that's not very helpful, is it?

When members of the public are trying to make

Yes, it's unfortunate that there is no national standard.

There is a general lack of training for people

in the industry, lack of regulation within the industry,

Jackie Harrison is responsible for checking

cleanliness and hygiene of tattoo parlours and body piercing

We keep all the consent forms and we keep them

locked in a cupboard for a year and every consent form we write down

exactly what ink we used and the batch numbers of the ink.

Monica and her brother both received 40 hours of unpaid community work

after being prosecuted for tattooing someone

They were also criticised for having unhygienic

premises following a visit from Blackpool Council.

It was a bit of an unfortunate day in our studio because we had

I was ill at home, so I was brought here to give some explanation

What was your explanation about what was going on?

My brother, his nature is sometimes to say too easily, yes.

Maybe too easily believed what people tried to

For many years I was working hard to keep the good name

of this studio, and then a bit unfortunate, row of events put

My work, my profession, my source of money for my family.

And you accept the criticisms that were levelled against

Yes, absolutely, because furniture was worn off.

It was a matter of things getting older and it doesn't look very

fresh, and sometimes you cannot see because you

see it every day, so of course, it was probably a week or two too

Monica's tattoo parlour has now been retested by Jackie.

You have turned everything around, from being in court,

you now have a five on the ratings scheme.

Has it been difficult to turn things around?

My ambition always was to keep the salon up to standard.

The needles, the grips, something which is 100% I am

Jackie brought this ratings scheme and we

followed all points, as much as we could.

We were lucky to go to five stars now.

While Monica has embraced the new scheme, the council says it

will name and shame many other businesses not up to standard

by publishing all ratings scores online.

And whilst it's currently voluntary, the council does

If people don't want to join the scheme, that would set

We will prohibit practices or prohibit

What we can do is firstly wash your tattoo and take a look

Sean is now looking to get his tattoo covered

up, and has used the council's rating system to research and find

I can see you have obviously had a terrible,

terrible infection around this portion of your arm.

Whether that is down to the ink or overworking the tattoo,

All the trouble seems to have been this area around the front,

Which has left you with some pretty nasty scars, actually.

If you're interested in getting this tattoo finished,

my advice would be to get very small skin patches

I would take it very slowly, test the colours.

It will be a long, drawn-out process for you, but we will be able to do

Sean welcomes the new scheme in Blackpool, but still

feels cautious about his ambition to get more tattoos.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't go to anyone that didn't have a 5-star

rating, regardless of what anyone says,

it is art, but it is definitely a medical procedure.

My ideal situation, before this happened,

was I wanted to be covered in tattoos.

I have so many different ideas, but there are a lot of tattoo

artists I've seen, I've walked in and just

turned back round and straight back out the door is cleanliness

If you would like to see more stories from

your area, join our Inside Out teams on Monday evening at 7:30pm

Very blustery and the next few days, some heavy rain and wind this

evening. This weekend is going to go