One of the people fighting plans to house asylum seekers at the RAF Linton-on-Ouse base near York has written to the Richmond MP and Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, suggesting they could use his new pool and gym at Kirby Sigston.
David Salmons says as it’s just up the road from the base, day trips to the chancellor’s country house would help refugees integrate into the UK and have activities.
It’s suggested it would offer a free activity for the 1500 men who will be housed at Linton while applications for asylum are processed.
Most villagers, Hambleton Council and the local Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, have hit out at the plan to put the men at Linton saying their numbers are too much for the small village to cope with.
The letter in full:
Dear Rishi.
1500 Male Asylum Seekers coming to Linton-On-Ouse end of May – in need of activities please help!
We are writing to you to see if we can organise some day trips to your country house in Kirby Sigston.
As you are probably aware, Linton-on-Ouse will have 1500 new residents and we have really limited activities.
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We thought of you as it is just a short bus journey away and given there are no facilities in Linton-in-Ouse for the 1500 young men, Priti and Boris have housed here, and they have no money, we need to help these refugees integrate into the UK and have activities.
We understand you have recently built a pool and a gym; this would be a great Northern welcome to help make the men feel safe and happy.
If they could spend the day here, we can send them with a packed lunch.If possible, given the number of men and that we don’t want anyone left out, could we send 6 bus loads a week (300 men) and rotate every 5 weeks?
This should then give them an activity reasonably local which is free as they can’t do much on £6 a week.
Please let me know when we can start to organise in June as men start arriving in our village shortly.
We will also be writing to Priti about shopping trips to Bluewater and Boris to see what parties he has upcoming where they can attend for free.Thanks for helping with immigration.
Kind regards.
David Salmons.
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YorkMix will let you know if there is a reply.
Some senior politicians have said they would take in refugees from the Ukraine War.
Those include Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps and First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon.