Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
‘Motivated to learn our ways’
The Rev Steve Coneys, above, team rector for the Anglican churches in Whitstable, worked with young asylumseekers at a centre in Whitstable.
He said: “I would be very anxious that they are getting properly looked after if they are being placed in local authority rented accommodation.
“The Kent Refugee Action Network is very good and does excellent work with them, but of course their capacity is limited.
“From my work with these young men, it’s clear they are very motivated to learn English and English customs and get on and engage.” A father is accusing authorities of not doing enough to monitor young asylum-seeking men – leaving them free to disrupt residents on a Canterbury housing estate.
Dad-of-three Paul Hazleden says the level of supervision of refugees in houses usually rented out to students on the Hales Place Estate is virtually non-existent, making life intolerable for residents.
One Iraqi teenager who spoke to the Gazette this week says he only sees his social worker around once a week.
Mr Hazleden, 48, discovered in October that young asylumseekers had moved into a house in Westerham Close, a quiet culde-sac he lives in off Headcorn Drive.
“It’s always been students before that and I only found out they were asylum-seekers when I asked,” Mr Hazleden said.
“No one had told us. For the first few weeks they were very disruptive. They’re young men and they stay up all night, they don’t have any responsibilities and they get packets of money delivered by the postman.
“I understand that they’ve been through a lot and we’re not trying to demonise them, but there is no supervision of them.
“They need to be properly monitored.
“There was some infighting here between men from different countries and there was a bad pair from Morocco a few months ago. They’ve gone, but there are still issues.”
Police confirmed that they had been to the Westerham Close house twice since the start of the year to a report of broken windows on February 5 and because