This morning at about 3am a serious fire took hold at Mudeford Sandbank destroying four huts entirely and another two severely.
Early reports indicate a party with alcohol and fiireworks was in progress at or near the scene overnight. Because site licence hut regulations prohibit overnight stays in the winter, this episode went unchecked for long enough for the fire to take hold.
The weather today was beautiful. and one wonders if the regulations might be eased to allow overnights out of season to limit the chance of this sort of presumably unsupervised or noticed disaster happening again. Huts 245 to 255 inclusive were involved, with Firemen having to deal with obstacles between the huts and calor gas cylinders (albeit these should have been safe in their council designed gas lockers).
It is always gratifying after a fire to see that designed features or specialist materials did their job as they were supposed to.
The Mudeford Sandbank Beach Hut Association led by Commander Hale held a meeting the following Monday to consider this event, one that will maybe cost over £100,000 in rebuilding and insurance costs.
One individual was placed on Police bail whilst investigations continued... but the prosecution was later abandoned in the light of only circumstantial evidence, poor witness statements and no CCTV, said PC 401, local Community Beat Officer Rob Bentall subsequently on the 1st April at a meeting of the nearby Hengistbury Head Residents’ Association (HENRA) .
The Police and Fire Brigade attended swiftly, having to negotiate the two sets of gates on the Broadway, and Police Scientific (Forensic) Services have been in attendance, taking away items of evidence.
Since fireworks were seen in the area and a party of sorts was held in the vicinity, if anyone wishes to report anything they should do so to Boscombe Police Station, or Bournemouth Police Station.
If you have seen anything out of the ordinary or have any further information that you believe may be useful for the authorities please contact Dorset Police. The officer dealing with the matter is PC2031 Andrew Burley, Tel; 01202 222222, his email address is
andrew.burley@dorset.pnn.police.uk.
and the crime reference is 21-110
or even in confidence this website by emailing me:
Not that I have any official function, but an email to me might seem a better alternative to any other action in the first instance, as I am neutral as a news gather and will offer a sympathetic ear, having attended and even organised bonfire style parties in my youth where the Fire Brigade and Police were called...but took no action as our organisation was exemplary and a police officer off duty was even in attendance in our last case.
I do however, have more to offer. Security on the beach here and elsewhere is close to my heart....I have set up Panopticon Security as a voluntary website and Patrolling offer for beaches where I have or use beach huts.
I have also volunteered as a Beach Watch volunteer with the nearby extant New Forest Beach Hut Watch organisation who look after 850 huts over a 40 mile stretch of coastline in total.
Please see:
http://web.mac.com/beachhutman/Panopticon
...for my ideas to improve the situation locally.
Given keys to both sets of gates I would be happy to patrol on a random basis at Mudeford Sandbank too, an offer I have made before and will make again.
There are health and safety issues in such an enterprise, never mind the commitment required, but my ambition for a number of years is to extend what I call the “Panopticon” idea to the Sandbank and beach huts everywhere... where no-one else is doing it.
This situation will soon change, anyway, as local intelligence is picturing together a new awareness of organised partygoers increasingly “hitting the sandbank” in recent times. Yet the trouble with crime is that it is or can be everywhere, at any time of day or night.
See my previous reports of action, preventative, remedial or sadly too late that has surrounded this issue here:
http://web.mac.com/beachhutman/Panopticon/Cases.html
See especially some practical advice to mitigate theft, vandalism, arson or accidental damage in this item I published here, by a serving Police Officer:
http://web.mac.com/beachhutman/Panopticon/DIARY/Entries/2008/12/13__POLICE_ADVICE.html
Here is the disaster today from another angle.
With the collapse of the case against the individual given Police bail, I am not going to be the first to say that this was arson, this is a responsible news gathering organ first and foremost.
Neither am I going to hound the Fire Service to get their view of the cause. I am an amateur news gatherer, and try not to bother the authorities in every case.
Nevertheless a patrolling news gatherer seems like a good idea to me. I want to spend more time on the beach and I am a bit of a night owl.
Let me know what you think by email here or at my Panopticon site.
The Mudeford Sandbank Beach Hut Association also has a general website where you may consider the delights and detractions of local beach hut life,
see:
There are issues of loss of amenity for the owners who only have a short period to rebuild before the usual seasonal or now at least school holidays’ moratorium on building works.
Famed beach hut insurers TL Risk Solutions are another avenue for any additional disclosures as to what happens in these sorts of cases , as they are the likely insurers of these huts and many others nationwide.
see
http://www.tlrisksolutions.com
But please keep the news coming, prevention is better than cure when it comes to public safety, protection of property and staying within the bounds of reasonable risk .
A year or two ago a similar devastation at Calshot Beach twenty miles away of a similar number of huts turned out to be an electrical equipment fault.
