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06
Sept
Help us Harrogate, say Linton residents
Campaigners in Linton-on-Ouse have appealed to Harrogate and other nearby places to support their attempt to prevent 1,200 asylum seekers being housed in the village.
The government is considering using the former RAF Linton-on-Ouse base to house up to 1,200 asylum seekers for at least three years as part of a plan to close asylum hotels.
The proposal has generated fierce opposition in the village, which has a population of 760.
Linton-on-Ouse Action Group posted on Facebook on Saturday (September 5) that having so many migrants living at the airbase would have a wider impact on the district, as they will be free to travel.
It said:
Our neighbours should be shouting too! The proposed 1,200 male asylum seekers will be provided with transport to nearby towns. Given there are no amenities at all in Linton-on-Ouse, a rural village of 700 residents, you would expect lots of them to take up the opportunity to regularly leave the asylum centre.
We know that asylum seekers currently placed in Wethersfield Accommodation Centre are transported to Braintree (7 miles), Chelmsford (19 miles) and Colchester (23 miles). So Wetherby, York and Harrogate, do not bury your head in the sand, this affects you too. Please join us in this fight!
Ripon City Council is expected to discuss the matter at a meeting tonight.
An agenda item says the council will “consider HM Government proposals to house asylum seekers at the former base and to agree any representations that the council may wish to make”. The meeting, which takes place at Ripon Town Hall at 6pm, is open to the public.
However, Linton was not discussed at last week’s Harrogate Town Council meeting.
The agenda for Knaresborough Town Council’s next meeting on September 14 has not been published yet.
Linton is just outside the former Harrogate district. It is 9.5 miles from Boroughbridge, 14 miles from Knaresborough and 19 miles from Harrogate.
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