Town to accept 35 refugees
Scarborough Council is set to accept a minimum of 35 refugees as part of a governmentled resettlement scheme.
The authority’s cabinet backed the county-wide plan to take in around seven families subject to the project being funded from Westminster.
In 2016, Scarborough accepted 36 Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in their own country as part of a North Yorkshire-wide resettlement program of approximately 200 people.
The new initiative, the Global Resettlement Scheme, will run from 2021 to 2024 and once again see around 200 people housed in the county.
A report prepared for the cabinet said that while the previous refugees were fleeing conflict in Syria this time the geographical focus will be “broadened beyond the Middle East and the North Africa region”.
Cabinet member Cllr Tony Randerson (Lab), in response to some negative online comments, said it was important to remember that private rented homes, as well as social housing, would be used to house the families.
He added: “I am immensely proud to be able to support these refugees who are fleeing persecution that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares. To do anything less just isn’t an option. Despite some quite un-Christian comments from a thankfully very small minority of residents I have to say that we just spent a couple days remembering the fallen over two world wars and the devastation those wars created, these refugees are escaping such areas of war, much the same as occurred during the two great wars where our allies escaped and were taken in as refugees.”