Tensions grow in Linton-on-Ouse over asylum seeker centre plans
During a meeting on Thursday (19 May), residents told Home Office officials who were present they being treated as ‘collateral damage’
Residents of a Domesday Book village beside a proposed centre for 1,500 asylum seekers have told Home Office officials they are being treated as “collateral damage”.
Several civil servants and managers from security firm Serco faced a barrage of questions as they attended a parish council meeting in Linton on Ouse, north of York, in a bid to allay a raft of concerns about launching the centre at the former RAF Linton on Ouse base on May 31.
The parish council’s chairman was forced to intervene numerous times as residents in a packed village hall vented fury over the Home Office’s failure to consult over the plan to help end the government’s reliance on hotels to accommodate asylum seekers and jeered as the officials spoke.
The civil servants, whose gave their first names, told the meeting they planned to create facilities on the former air base and while the asylum seekers would be primarily on site, they were looking at travel arrangements so the non-detained asylum seekers could travel to York.
One official told the meeting: “We are really keen that we don’t impact on the local community. We recognise that you feel you haven’t been engaged fully and that you don’t feel that you are left out in the cold and that you are comfortable what is happening on the site.”
When asked about why the site had been selected, an official faced heckling as he stated the former base had been judged “feasible”, without making it clear what criteria had been used to select the isolated village. He added the site would provide the asylum seekers with three meals a day and recreational activities.
Residents were told the site would feature a state of the art security system, including CCTV, security guards on the front gates and roaming patrols, but that the asylum seekers would be free to come and go as they pleased.
The asylum seekers, the meeting heard, would be requested to inform the centre if they did not intend on returning there for the night.
Chief inspector David Hunter told the meeting North Yorkshire Police intended to have two officers on patrol in the village, from 8.30am to midnight every day, but the force would respond to “changes in demand”.
A resident responded: “We don’t want police in the village. We are a sleepy village. We don’t want gangs of people wandering about.”
Ahead of the meeting, a crowd of about 200 residents from the village and surrounding area gathered outside the village hall to await the arrival of the Home Office officials.
Among them were Gary and Nicola Roberts, who have lived in Linton on Ouse for ten years. Mr Roberts said described the proposal to transform the former RAF base as “a recipe for disaster” for the village.
He said: “When the base was open and there was aircraft flying at night we never a problem with that. This proposal is like a bomb being dropped on the village.”
Ian Norrie, whose daughter lives in the village, said she was examining how much extra security measures, such as CCTV, would cost.
When the officials arrived scores of residents booed and chanted “wrong plan, wrongplace.”