Priti Patel intends to come to Linton-on-Ouse, villagers were told tonight (Thursday).
The Home Secretary is prepared to visit the village, which will soon house 1,500 male asylum seekers under her hugely controversial plans.
Several civil servants and managers from security firm Serco faced a barrage of questions as they attended a parish council meeting in the village north of York this evening.
Posted by Linton-on-Ouse Action Group on Thursday, 19 May 2022
The asylum centre is due to launch at the former RAF Linton on Ouse base on 31 May.
One resident asked the officials: “As I understand it, you’re civil servants, so your job is to enact the decisions government ministers make.
“It’s Priti Patel who has made the decision to use accommodation centres like this all over the UK. My question is, will she be coming here, speak to the community and hear about the impact?”
A civil servant replied: “Yes. That is a part of our plan to make sure that she comes along and meets with everybody here, and you have an opportunity to speak to her at some point.
“We’re trying to work out with her office to get some time in her diary. But it is our intention for her to come along.”
That provoked comments of ‘brave lady’, while others suggested she will go straight into the air base and avoid the village.
Police patrols
During a stormy meeting, the parish council’s chairman was forced to intervene numerous times as residents in the packed village hall vented fury over the Home Office’s failure to consult over the plan.
As the officials spoke, they were often jeered and barracked.
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.
[tptn_list limit=3 daily=1 hour_range=1]
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.
[adrotate group=”3″]
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.”
North Yorkshire Police commissioner Zoe Metcalfe said she wanted residents to feel safe.
Additional reporting: Stuart Minting – Local Democracy Reporter