Dartford locals have expressed their anger after it was revealed that a building on a residential street is being repurposed to house asylum seekers.
Locals have claimmed that there had been no meetings with residents before works on the site started, with a complete lack of any consultation. They say that no one was told about the site being repurposed for asylum seekers until work had already taken place on the building.
A resident said that the area has been a building site for many months, with significant scaffolding appearing to repurpose it to house asylum seekers.
The information about the plans for the building was only provided when local concerns were raised as to what was happening there. Locals now say that the council have tried to get this through without any consultation as they know how heavily opposed the local people would be.
Kent County Council (KCC) Leader Roger Gough admitted that the authority is redeveloping the Limes building to house children seeking asylum after a High Court order.
He said that the council was directed to take “every possible step” to increase capacity to accommodate Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking (UAS) children arriving in Kent. He added that this was being done so that the council would “fully comply with its statutory Children Act 1989 duties and end the unlawful use of hotels managed by the Home Office”.
The council has announced that government funding will cover the costs of the new accommodation, with Gough adding that the buildings “will not present an additional unfair burden on Kent taxpayers.”
Children will be held at the accommodation until they are redistributed across the country.
