Row as Syrian refugees get six-bedroom village home
A SYRIAN refugee family will be housed in a six- bedroom home – after the council failed to find a suitable local family to move in instead. But council chiefs insist they couldn’t find any local families who needed it
The property in a leafy Home Counties village has been specially adapted to accommodate the disabled but has been available since February last year.
It has been used as emergency accommodation but the local authority and the housing association that owns it have not been able to find a suitable permanent family.
Hundreds of residents lobbied the council to use the six-bedroom semidetached home in a village near Sevenoaks, Kent, to house refugees.
And after considering other options such as splitting the property or
have been through, and are still selling it, the decision was made going through, an atrocious expelast week to use it to resettle a rience given the war in Syria. Syrian family. ‘And we feel, as a sign of a decent
Humphrey Pring, of the Sevensociety, we should be able to oaks Welcomes Refugees camaccommodate a small number of paign group, helped collect hunpeople in Sevenoaks.’ dreds of signatures from those The move has, however, caused calling for a Syrian family to be uproar among some locals, who housed in the property. claim the house should have gone
He said: ‘We just believe it is the to needy Kent families. The sixright thing to do – these people bedroom house sits at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. Many neighbours are furious that Sevenoaks District Council did not consult them on the decision to offer the house to a Syrian family.
David Smith, 51, who lives three doors down from the property, said: ‘There was a campaign to welcome refugees to Sevenoaks, which is fine, but they should have informed the residents who would actually be affected. The lady who lives next door to the house only found out she was going to have a Syrian refugee family for neighbours via Facebook.
‘The council never once consulted her. I think the house should be supplied to someone with a disabled family – but they were saying they couldn’t find anyone on the housing register.’
Another neighbour, who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of being called racist, said: ‘It’s been handled appallingly and anyone who sticks their head above the parapet gets branded racist.
‘The council have deliberately kept it from us.
‘I have no problem with inviting Syrians over here but it’s just been forced upon us all.
‘They didn’t want to hear any of our opinions. There are so many other families on the waiting list who could have lived there.’
A third resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘They will have been through hell so I
‘It’s been forced upon us all’
will welcome them. But at the same time I think we should look after our own first. It makes me angry when I see homeless soldiers on the streets and it’s impossible for so many British people to find council housing.’
The house was available to residents of Sevenoaks and neighbouring local authorities.
Of the 758 people on the Sevenoaks District Council housing register, there are none who need six bedrooms, one who needs five bedrooms and 17 people who need four bedrooms.