North Yorkshire Council has published an update on its work with refugees and asylum seekers.

Councils have a duty to provide accommodation to asylum seekers and migrants and help them integrate.

North Yorkshire Council created a migrant programmes team last year to form a single integrated service.

A report to councillors said the team had secured lottery funding to roll out a scheme that already operates in Scarborough and Ryedale to places including Harrogate and Knaresborough in which the council works with voluntary sector organisations to “welcome and empower migrant communities across North Yorkshire” to rebuild their lives.

The lottery funding is worth £425,735 over three years, according to a previous council report.

The latest report also revealed: 

Resettlement

This refers to the relocation of refugees. By March 31 this year, North Yorkshire had resettled 484 persons in 97 households since August 2021 under Afghan resettlement schemes, which were created to help those who assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan. Of those, 43 people in nine households had moved out of county.

Over half of the households are being accommodated in Ministry of Defence service family accommodation on three-year leases. The council is responsible for re-housing those who wish to remain in North Yorkshire. The report said: “Discussions will commence shortly with the families to ascertain where they would like to live in the UK and to plan to move the earliest arrivals out of the MOD properties.”

Another 180 people from 46 households have been resettled in North Yorkshire under the United Kingdom Resettlement Scheme, which responds to refugee crises around the world and has been operational in the county since February 2021.

The MOD transitional facility at Catterick Garrison, which houses Afghan families after their arrival in the UK prior to finding settled accommodation, was due to close this month (May), the report said, “with all families moved either into settled accommodation elsewhere in the UK or moved to other transitional MOD sites outside of North Yorkshire”. 

Asylum

The council’s migrant team is “developing move-on support options and other services” for asylum seekers who are granted the right to stay in the UK, the report says.

It does not give figures on how many are allowed to stay in North Yorkshire but adds: “A monthly meeting is now in place with Mears, the Home Office commissioned provider for accommodation, to discuss support requirements for individuals and families that have recently received a positive decision.”

Homes for Ukraine

The number of individual Ukrainians arriving in North Yorkshire on this scheme since March 2022, as their first point of arrival, is 1,598. The Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme, which launched in February this year, gives guests a further 18 months visa to stay in the UK. There had been one approved extension application and 19 applied for by the end of March.

Translation and Interpretation

The cost of providing these services increased from £167,000 in 2023/24 to £208,000 in 2024/25.

The report says an artificial intelligence translation tool, which is due to launch in the next financial year, “will provide an overall saving against this element of the service”.