𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Andy Burnham has been accused of “not listening” to villagers terrified by Labour’s horror plan to dump more than 1,200 migrants into a community of just 600 adults. A Home Office minister sparked outrage after suggesting a proposed asylum camp in Linton-on-Ouse is located “away” from the rural North Yorkshire community.

Villagers accused border security and asylum minister Anna Turley of “lies” and “ignorance”, adding that the former RAF base’s proximity to a housing estate “speaks for itself to whoever can be bothered to come and see”. It backs onto a housing estate, and a “flimsy fence” is all that separates a children’s play area. Campaigners said the Government has repeatedly ignored mounting concerns about safety, local infrastructure and costs. Some 1,250 asylum seekers could eventually stay on the site.

Linton-on-Ouse resident Alice Sizer said: “It absolutely beggars belief that they’ve thrown our life into chaos and caused such anxiety and clearly have no knowledge of the reality of our village.

“The park my five-year-old uses shares a flimsy fence with the site – yet they claim it’s separate from the community. Andy Burnham promises that his Government is listening, but they clearly aren’t here.

“We’ve asked so many times, but none of the decision-makers will come and visit to see for themselves.

“We moved here three years ago wanting to give her a quiet rural upbringing. My father-in-law was in the RAF, and my husband lived here for a while and always wanted to come back and give her the happy childhood he had here.

“At the moment, after school she plays out with friends either in the street or the local park. I’m worried we might not feel safe doing that and we’ll end up feeling trapped at home or like we have to travel just for her to play outside somewhere.

“I worry if we’ll feel safe walking her to and from the school. In a few years’ time the school will be encouraging her to get to and from school by herself, and there’s no way I’d let her do that if this goes ahead.

“Like most people we’ve thought about selling up and leaving.”

Martin Sanderson, of the Linton-on-Ouse Action Group, told the Daily Express: “Since 2022, all we have asked for is openness and transparency from the Home Office.

“We have been left in limbo, our lives on hold because the Home Office refuses to talk. They tell us nothing. Silence creates fear and division across our communities.

“It leaves us wondering what they have to hide. If these proposals were safe and proportionate, surely they would be happy to put our minds at rest?

“To hear the asylum minister set out that proposed large sites like Linton are separate and away from communities highlighted just why this scrutiny is needed. The proposed site in Linton-on-Ouse is not separate or away, it is in the centre of and surrounded by the village.

“This is a ghetto in the centre of our community. A gated, segregated area which will compound the issues surrounding these people, putting them and us at risk.”

The Government has assembled a £150million war chest to “fund additional large sites to accommodate asylum seekers”. Some of it will be used to find and convert new unannounced sites, Treasury and Home Office sources have confirmed.

Campaigners in Linton-on-Ouse believe the Government will need 74 sites of a similar size “if large-scale sites were genuinely the solution to the asylum backlog”.

The site in Linton-on-Ouse is next to a housing estate, complete with a toddler play area that backs onto the asylum camp and scores of young families living nearby. The village’s schoolchildren will have to walk past the asylum seekers every day.

A giant former military accommodation overshadows White Rose Close, with families living in the street of three and four-bedroom detached houses facing the prospect of asylum seekers looking into their homes or gardens and wandering around the back of their properties.

And families are leaving Linton Place, a small cul-de-sac off the main road to the camp, because they fear their community is being destroyed. Children are also not being enrolled at the local primary school.

But on Tuesday, Ms Turley sensationally told MPs in a session examining Labour’s Immigration and Asylum Bill: “We’re not housing them in a community. They are being housed on a specific site, that is self-contained, that is away from the community.

“All of their needs are met on that site, and where they aren’t met, they are transported to larger places like cities and towns. That’s certainly the situation we have in Wethersfield and Crowborough.

“It is very rare for those individuals to leave the camp of their own volition. They have to sign in and out. They are not in the village.”

Mother-of-two Laura Harman, another Linton resident, added: “In her own words, Anna Turley said to the APPG Immigration Bill Committee: ‘We’re not housing them in the community. They are being housed on a specific site that is self-contained and away from the community.’

“This is simply a lie. If Anna were to visit, as many journalists and the Shadow Cabinet have, she would see, clear as day, that her statement is false, and this is not a suitable site for an asylum centre.

“From a street of family homes, the buildings you can see are the proposed asylum centre. It speaks for itself to whoever can be bothered to come and see.”

Ms Turley defended Labour’s approach. “These sites provide basic, safe accommodation for asylum seekers and are designed to be as self-sufficient as possible, reducing the impact on communities,” she said.

“I must reiterate that large sites offer a sustainable solution to housing asylum seekers. They allow for dedicated on-site services such as health and safeguarding.

“Large sites build confidence in a fair and humane system, reducing pressure on communities. He will know very clearly how the term nimbyism gets used quite a lot.”