The migrant tent cities springing up in the suburb where one in every 112 residents is an asylum seeker
Mini ‘tent cities’ have sprung up in a West London borough where councillors say they are struggling to cope with supporting thousands of asylum seekers.
Hillingdon had supported 89 asylum seekers out of every 10,000 residents at the end of last year – or one in every 112 – and residents told MailOnline the amount of taxpayers’ money which the council is having to pay was ‘disgraceful’.
Councillors say they are £5million short of the funds they would need to support everyone asking for help – putting a ‘huge burden’ on taxpayers and local services.
With some deemed ineligible for housing support after leaving hotels, there has been a ‘significant increase’ in rough sleeping – with ‘tented communities’ springing up in parks and under bridges.
Hillingdon accommodates a higher number of asylum seekers than average because of the large number of hotels it has near Heathrow Airport.
Some of these are used as taxpayer-funded asylum accommodation – and, once a migrant leaves this Home Office-run accommodation, they become the local council’s responsibility.
Residents said they think central government needs to fork out more money, but were equally sympathetic to the plight of the asylum seekers fleeing war and famine.
Lisa Stevens, who lives in Cowley, a village within the borough of Hillingdon, admitted she did not know how much the council was spending on asylum seekers.
Mini ‘tent cities’ have sprung up in Hillingdon in West London, as shown in this BBC report
Rough sleeping is rising with ‘tented communities’ springing up in parks and under bridges
‘I see them all at the hotels [near Heathrow],’ the 49-year-old told MailOnline. ‘I didn’t know it was that much we were spending on them.
‘I just pay my bills. My daughter’s in temporary accommodation and can’t get a council house, and she’s lived in the borough for 18 years.’
Margaret, another Hillingdon resident, said she was ‘fed-up’ with the current migrant situation, and couldn’t understand how authorities were unable to stop small boats crossing the Channel in the first place.
The 76-year-old fumed: ‘I find it absolutely appalling. My husband’s in a nursing home and has been for three years. All I get to help is the attendance allowance of £435 a month. The rest comes out of our savings and my husband’s state pension.
‘I find it incredible that they can’t stop the boats coming over. I can’t understand why they can’t and what the French are doing. I worked all my life, sent my kids to university and now I am paying for my husband’s care. It’s absolutely disgraceful.’
Meanwhile Gina Forse sympathised with migrants making the perilous journey across the Channel to Britain, but believes central government should be footing the lion’s share of the bill for migrants, not individual local councils.
‘I work for the mental health trust,’ the 66-year-old said. ‘We have a lot of asylum seekers in hotels who come across with a lot of mental health problems to do with their homes and their traumatic journeys across.
‘[The money to house them] should come from central government. Asylum seekers should also have a separate mental health service for them as well, because it’s draining on our already-drained mental health services.
Gina Forse sympathised with migrants travelling across the Channel, but believes central government should be footing the lion’s share of the bill for migrants, not individual councils
Lisa Stevens, who lives in Cowley, said: ‘I just pay my bills. My daughter’s in temporary accommodation and can’t get a council house, and she’s lived in the borough for 18 years’
Hillingdon in West London accommodates a higher number of asylum seekers than average
Sharon Harries, who works at Hillingdon Hospital, said asylum seekers often shoulder the blame for wider failures in services in Britain, adding that the NHS is ‘not what it used to be’
‘Some people obviously need help more urgently than others, so we should triage them.’
Sharon Harries, who works at Hillingdon Hospital, said asylum seekers often shoulder the blame for wider failures in services in Britain.
‘It’s nothing to do with asylum seekers,’ the 68-year-old, who lives in Uxbridge, said. ‘The National Health Service is not what it used to be. Waiting lists are getting longer and longer. People wait so long for one appointment that they don’t even turn up.’
Councillor Steve Tuckwell, cabinet member for planning, housing and growth at Hillingdon Council, said the strain on local services could soon increase due to the large number of asylum seekers currently staying in local hotels.
He told MailOnline: ‘We estimate there’s around 3,500 asylum seekers in hotels in Hillingdon at the moment, which is the largest concentration in the country.’
‘These asylum seekers will eventually become the responsibility of the London Borough of Hillingdon.
‘And that doesn’t include the additional asylum seekers that the Home Office is processing and will put in hotels.’
The Conservative councillor said Government funding was not enough to cover the costs lumbered on the council, resulting in it having to stump up £5million a year from its own funds.
‘Five million pounds would cover the entire library and heritage service for the year,’ he said.
‘The government provide some funding, but we are way, way, way beyond that. We estimate the funding [for this year] will run out by November.
‘After that, the entire burden of asylum seekers will be with the Hillingdon taxpayer. That’s unacceptable, particularly because some companies are making record profits from processing asylum claims.’
Mr Tuckwell added that their asylum seeker burden was also being added to by British Nationals Overseas (BNOs) arriving from the Chagos Islands, which is expected to be handed over to Mauritius under a controversial new deal agreed by Labour.
‘This week alone, we had 129 individuals arrived from the Chagos Islands,’ he continued.
‘They arrive at Heathrow Airport and, if they have dependants, we are obliged to house them. The Government have said they will only cover the costs for the first ten days.
‘We are putting as much pressure on the Government as we can to provide adequate funding for processing asylum claims. It’s a huge burden and it also diverts our attention from the services we provide our residents.
‘Hillingdon is a welcoming borough, but the volume of asylum seekers being given permanent settlement means we need the funding from government to carry out their policy.
‘It’s not right that the Hillingdon taxpayer is to fund all of that. It’s not acceptable.’
Mr Tuckwell added that the council were housing some asylum seekers in newly refurbished temporary accommodation blocks in the borough, but admitted that rough sleeping had risen among asylum seekers deemed ineligible for housing.
Outside the Holiday Inn near the airport, Afghani asylum seeker Tory Alai said he had been living in Hillingdon for over a year, after spending his first year in Colchester, Essex.
The 23-year-old said he took a small boat across the English Channel from France along with 18 other people, and insisted that he would not go back to Afghanistan, where the ‘dangerous’ Taliban now rule.
‘I am not worried about being thrown out of the hotel,’ he told MailOnline. ‘I am going to a friend’s home. I am not going back to Afghanistan.’
Another man named Carlos, from Cali in Colombia, said he had been paying to stay in the same Holiday Inn hotel since arriving in the UK last August.
London Councils, which represents the capital’s boroughs, told the BBC that asylum accommodation pressures ‘are felt by boroughs across the capital and are especially acute in port authorities like Hillingdon’.
The group said it estimated a funding shortfall ‘of at least £500million this year across all services.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘This government inherited a broken asylum system, with tens of thousands stuck in a backlog and claims not being processed, wasting millions in taxpayer money.
‘We are immediately speeding up decisions and increasing returns so we can end the use of hotels, and save the taxpayer £4 billion by 2026.
‘We remain committed to working closely with local authorities to work towards a fair and equitable spread of accommodation and provide the financial support required.’
