The Government is clearly not listening to the concerns of people in Linton-on-Ouse
It is easy to see why the Government is keen to end the use of migrant hotels. Not only are they not fit for purpose, the inequity of migrants being housed in hotels that many ordinary people could never afford to stay in has left communities aggrieved.
So much so that it has become a real political hot potato with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK making gains off the back of the issue.
Therefore Chancellor John Healey’s desire to trumpet £150m of funding to shuffle migrants away from hotels is understandable. The problem really is where they are being moved to.
RAF Linton-on-Ouse and other military sites are set to be turned into asylum camps. Yet as protests in places like Linton-on-Ouse and Piddington have shown, this would be just a case of shuffling the problem from one place to another.
The people of Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire have clearly articulated why plans for an asylum camp there are wholly unacceptable.
To any fair-minded, reasonable person not blinded by political headlines, the objections are understandable.
The fact that this Labour Government is pressing on regardless suggests that there’s no desire to engage with these concerns.
Not only is it inappropriate for a village the size of Linton-on-Ouse, the population would be overwhelmingly outnumbered by the migrant men due to be housed at the former RAF base, but it is also not appropriate for asylum seekers.
Despite Government assurances that they will be kept contained on the former RAF base, there are doubts that this will always remain the case.
And what if and when asylum claims are approved? How will dumping them into rural areas of Britain with minimal infrastructure help them integrate?