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03
Sept 2022
County council criticises Home Office again over ‘dumping asylum seekers’
North Yorkshire County Council has criticised the Home Office for its treatment of those seeking asylum after it scrapped plans to house 1,500 asylum seekers at a former RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse
Conservative Cllr David Chance, executive member for stronger communities, said despite having repeatedly been made aware of the complete unsuitability of a hotel near Selby as bridging accommodation for Afghan refugees, the Home Office had announced it now intended to use it for asylum seekers instead.
The move has emerged just weeks after the Home Office revealed it no longer intended to send asylum seekers to Linton on Ouse, which is four miles from Great Ouseburn and Little Ousburn in the Harrogate district, not far from Knaresborough and Boroughbridge.
It also comes just three weeks after the final Afghan refugees left the hotel near Selby. After leaving the accommodation, Marwa Koofi, 21, who fled Kabul when the city fell to the Taliban last year, said she had since “wasted a year because my hotel was in a location where I couldn’t do anything”.
A meeting of the executive of the county council, which in partnership with a range of agencies continues to provide support to the Afghan refugee families in another bridging hotel in Scarborough, heard families at the Selby hotel had been moved to other hotels.
Read more:
- Ouseburn councillor welcomes decision to scrap Linton asylum centre
- Village on fringes of Harrogate district to house asylum seekers
Cllr Chance said he was unaware of the proposed number of asylum seekers at the hotel.
He said the hotel had written to the government asking to be considered as bridging accommodation for refugees, “much against our better judgement”.
Coun Chance said:
After the meeting, Selby councillor and leader of the council’s Labour group Councillor Steve Shaw Wright said as the hotel was on the side of the former A1 those staying there would face having to walk miles to get anywhere.
He said while Selby Town Council had funded buses to get the Afghan refugees into the town so they could mix with people of their own faith, local councillors had been “really pleased” when they heard the government would close it for refugees.
Cllr Shaw Wright said:
A Home Office spokesman said the response to the crisis in Afghanistan last August was one of the most challenging, intense and complex overseas operations undertaken by the UK, and the largest air evacuation operation in recent memory.
He added:
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