‘Who Are These Homes Really For?’ Fury Grows After 83 Migrants Relocated to New Housing Estate
A TOTAL of 83 asylum seekers are to be moved in to £250,000 homes on an estate dubbed “Migrant Street”.
Twenty-one smart newbuild houses have been earmarked for the families.
Villagers have been left furious over plans to move 83 asylum seekers into newbuild homesCredit: SWNS
As of March, 20,885 asylum seekers were in hotel rooms and 72,768 were in other accommodation such as housesCredit: Getty
But one local in Stoke Heath, Shropshire, said: “It’s bang out of order.
“It doesn’t feel fair that these people will be living in shiny new homes free of charge, which hard-working local folk could never afford.”
Outraged villagers claim they have been lied to over plans to move the asylum seekers into the newbuild homes — and have vowed to fight the scheme.
They say they were told the new development would be affordable housing. But they have since learned that 21 homes in the Shropshire village of Stoke Heath have been earmarked for asylum seekers.
Emma O’Sullivan says locals were told the development was originally for social housing and now feels ‘lied’ toCredit: SWNS
Melanie Almond says it was a ‘complete shock’ when she found out about the plansCredit: SWNS
One migrant family is understood to have already moved into one of the properties, with more expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Emma O’Sullivan, 30, said: “We were told that the new development would be social houses, which was fine, but no one moved in for a year.
“Now we’re told they will be used for asylum seekers and they’re not part of the social housing at all. We feel like we’ve been lied to.
“I’ve got three teenage girls and we’re really worried. It’s not who they are, it’s how many there are. It’ll overload the infrastructure. There are only two primary schools in the area so if they’re all families that’s going to flood the primary schools. It’s just, ‘They’re here, put up with them’.”
Melanie Almond said: “It was like a bomb’s gone off and you’ve got ten minutes to get out. It was a complete shock. I found out on the internet. We couldn’t believe it.”
Another local said: “It’s bang out of order and people now call it ‘Migrant Street’, which will be pretty accurate. It doesn’t feel fair that these people will be living in shiny new homes free of charge, which hard-working local folk could never afford.”
Army veteran John “Basil” Brockhurst was angry the new housing was not being used for people struggling on the poverty line. He said: “To me there’s a lot more people that need brand new housing rather than people who make out they come from far away countries.”
The area’s Tory MP Mark Pritchard has called the village a “completely inappropriate location” for the plans. He said: “Stoke Heath is an isolated rural location with very few public services.
Army veteran John ‘Basil’ Brockhurst was angry the new housing was not being used for people struggling on the poverty lineCredit: SWNS
Tory MP Mark Pritchard has said the village is a ‘completely inappropriate location’ to house asylum seekersCredit: Gov.uk
“This is the wrong location and at the wrong scale. I will fight these ill-conceived plans all the way.”
Shropshire Council has written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to “raise our strong concerns about this location and are awaiting a response before considering any further action”.
Police and Crime Commissioner of West Mercia John-Paul Campion called the plan “wholly inappropriate”.
The Government insists the move is part of a wider strategy to cut costs and reduce hotel use by 2029, instead relocating people into “properties and ex-military sites”.
As of March, 20,885 asylum seekers were in hotel rooms and 72,768 were in other accommodation such as houses in multiple occupation and camps as they waited for their claims to be processed.
Serco, the outsourcing company responsible for housing asylum seekers and migrants in the West Midlands, said: “We work under the direction of the Home Office, who decide where people are placed, based on overall national demand.
“The Home Office determines how many people are to be accommodated in each local authority area and instruct us accordingly.”
The Home Office said: “This Government is restoring order to the system by making record levels of asylum decisions, cutting claims by 12 per cent and increasing removals of illegal migrants by 41 per cent.
“We are working closely with local authorities to ramp up the closure of asylum hotels across the UK.
Hotel numbers have more than halved since their peak and instead we are scaling up the use of large, basic accommodation for illegal migrants to reduce community impact.”
