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01
Jul
Build homes, not asylum centre, at Linton, says mayor
Labour mayor David Skaith has criticised his own party’s plans to create an asylum centre in Linton-on-Ouse and said the site should be used for housing instead.
The former RAF base is one of three ex-military sites earmarked to house 3,750 asylum seekers. A total of 1,200 single males would be sent to Linton, which is four miles from Great Ouseburn and nine miles from Boroughbridge.
The other sites planned for use are at Barnham in Suffolk and Bicester in Oxfordshire,
Home Office minister Alex Norris told Parliament on Monday (June 29) the government had cut asylum costs by £1 billion by taking measures such as closing hotels and there was now a need for “scaling up our use of larger, more basic facilities”.
Residents’ groups and politicians are already coordinating plans to resist creating a centre at Linton.
In a statement today, David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, said the ex-RAF base was “simply the wrong place for plans to accommodate large numbers of asylum seekers” and the site “should be housing-led redevelopment”.
Mr Skaith added:
With a serious shortage of housing across our county, RAF Linton-on-Ouse is one of our biggest opportunities to help meet local need and support economic growth.
What is most frustrating is that, years after the site's closure, that economic potential remains unrealised. Local people are rightly asking why a site capable of delivering thousands of homes is still sitting idle while housing pressures continue to grow.
I will be making it clear to North Yorkshire Council, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence that RAF Linton-on-Ouse should be used to build homes, not house asylum seekers. This proposal risks putting the site's future development on hold and further delays the homes, jobs and economic investment that local people have been waiting years to see.
Jo Coles, the deputy mayor for policing, fire and crime said public safety was a key consideration, adding:
The scale of this proposal, combined with the site's location and limited infrastructure, raises serious and legitimate concerns about the impact on policing, emergency services and wider community safety.
North Yorkshire Police, North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service and other local partners agencies must have confidence that they have the resources and operational capacity required to respond effectively to any increased risks.
I have therefore written to the asylum minister and the chief constable of North Yorkshire Police to seek urgent assurances on all of these public safety issues and the resourcing implications for council tax payers.
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