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'Danger mix' of immigrant poverty, abuse and hostility
EASTERN European immigration into Yorkshire is creating a cocktail of slum housing, school bullying, abuse of the NHS, anti-social behaviour and a "constant undercurrent of hostility", a detailed investigation has found.
Schools and hospitals have been left underprepared for the influx of immigrants from Poland, Latvia and Eastern European countries, and in many cases have been left to fend for themselves because of a lack of Government support.
The research, from Hull University, does not set out to criticise the incomers, who on the whole are hard workers, taking jobs that locals do not want and keeping the regional economy alive.
But it describes an infrastructure that cannot cope with the new arrivals, where few statistics are collected and where exploitation runs rife.
Since eight Eastern European countries joined the European Union in 2004, tens of thousands of migrants have made their way to Yorkshire to work in factories, on fields, in warehouses and on heavy goods vehicles.
Many stay for three months or less, send money home each week and lead invisible lives, but others come to settle in Yorkshire and bring their family with them, often speaking no English.
The report catalogues a series of problems caused by the incomers – problems that need to be addressed quickly to stop resentment from building up among the English.
English people are being forced out of their homes by landlords eager to convert houses into small flats to house immigrants for greater profit.
In Hull, researchers found that 10 to 12 migrant workers were being squashed into two-bedroom flats, while in Grimsby there are between 200 and 300 migrants living in one row of 13 to 15 terraced homes.
Vulnerable non-English speakers are signed up while still in their Polish villages on contracts that force them to pay 80 a week to stay in a room with seven others. Even if they move out they still have to pay each week for the remainder of their year's contract.
Researchers found there were "concerns around personal hygiene, domestic hygiene, fire safety, no alarms, blocked fire exits" and social problems around up to 30 people sharing one oven in many slum properties.
"One respondent described the scale of the exploitation as 'pretty dire, pretty immense... that is not acceptable. I wouldn't do that to dogs'," the report said.
Many schools in the region are being swamped with children of economic migrants, many of whom just turn up on the doorstep in the morning.
One teacher described how one day she arrived at her school in Hull to find 28 Polish children standing on the doorstep. At the start of 2007, it was having three unannounced arrivals a week.
Teachers reported an overwhelming lack of translation services and multilingual classroom assistants available, which was partly fuelling increasing English on Polish bullying in the region's schools.
Medics described the arrival into this country of migrants as "the great unknown" with few statistics available on what health services they require now and into the future.
They said Eastern Europeans were "putting a horrible strain on us" and often had an "aggressive and demanding attitude", expecting to be treated straight away and often going straight to casualty if placed in a queue.
The investigation will form part of a wide-ranging report that will be launched at the Refugees and Migration Conference next month.
COCKTAIL OF PROBLEMS
English people being forced out of homes to make way for migrants.
Eastern Europeans crammed into homes and paying over the odds.
Many migrants exploited with few inspectors monitoring their lives.
Some primary schools being swamped with new Polish arrivals.
Little provision of translation services and lots of bullying in schools.
Sporadic incidents of verbal and physical abuse and constant tension.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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