Plan to house 83 asylum seekers in £250k new-build homes sparks fury in UK village
One family has already moved into one of the homes, with more expected in the coming weeks
A plan to move 83 asylum seekers into 21 new-build homes in a UK village has sparked opposition from residents.
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The properties, on a development in Stoke Heath, Shropshire, were originally understood by villagers to be affordable or social housing, but have now been earmarked for asylum-seeking families instead.
One family has already moved into one of the homes, with more expected in the coming weeks, it has emerged.
Residents claim that they feel "lied to" by the authorities.
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Emma O’Sullivan, 30, told The Sun: "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.
She continued: "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’."
Another resident, 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.”
A separate local told the paper: “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.”
The area’s Conservative MP Mark Pritchard described Stoke Heath as “a completely inappropriate location” for the proposal.
He said: “Stoke Heath is an isolated rural location with very few public services.
“This is the wrong location and at the wrong scale. I will fight these ill-conceived plans all the way.”
Shropshire Council said it had written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to “raise our strong concerns about this location and are awaiting a response before considering any further action”.
West Mercia’s Police and Crime Commissioner John-Paul Campion described the plan as “wholly inappropriate”.
The Government says the move forms part of a broader effort to reduce the use of hotels for asylum accommodation by 2029, instead using “properties and ex-military sites”.
As of March, there were 20,885 asylum seekers in hotel accommodation, while 72,768 were being housed elsewhere, including in houses in multiple occupation and camps, while their claims were processed.
Serco, which is responsible for housing asylum seekers 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.”
A Home Office spokesperson 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.”