Fenland will accept £900K of government cash to house refugees
Fenland District Council has agreed to accept almost £900,000 of Government funding towards housing refugees, but noted that local people may be angry it can’t be spent elsewhere.
The money, totalling £873,932 from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC), will be used to buy nine properties to house refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan in Fenland in the short-term.
The houses, which FDC say will be located outside the PE13 and PE14 postcode areas such as March and Whittlesey, can then be used for housing homeless people in the long-term.
But Cllr Steve Tierney (Conservatives) said at an FDC Cabinet meeting this week that, while he supports accepting the money, it’s “divisive and unwise” of DLUHC to stipulate that the houses must support refugees first.
“There are plenty of local people desperately looking for housing who will look at this and be angry about it,” he said.
Cllr Dee Laws (Conservatives) agreed, adding: “My heart goes out to local residents and I think it will be very difficult for them to comprehend this.”
Seven of the houses are likely to have two or three bedrooms, while DLUHC says one must have four.
Fenland will also have to match the Department’s funding in order to buy the houses, with this additional money coming from council reserves, Section 106 funds (money donated by developers) or a loan from the Government’s Public Works Loan Board (PWLB).
Which of these options will be chosen will be decided by council officers and investment board members at a later date.
Fenland leader Cllr Chris Boden said at the meeting that it’s in FDC’s financial interest to accept the DLUHC grant but added that the Government is “putting a sticking plaster on a much more serious wound”.
Cllr Steve Count (Conservatives) agreed that “what we actually need is more housing”, as the grant won’t go towards building new properties – just purchasing them.
Even Cllr Samantha Hoy (Conservatives) portfolio holder for housing, who presented the proposal to accept the money to the Cabinet, said it’s a “really difficult one”.
She said: “Why would we turn Government money down?
“But I also really agree with a lot of what’s been said, especially when you’ve got people who came here legally under EU treaty rights and now can’t get any public funding and are sleeping in self-made shacks in town because they haven’t got recourse to public funds.
“Then we’re spending public money buying houses for additional people to come and be housed here, then not least our own population.
“We all know how massive the housing list is and how desperate people are so it is a really difficult one.”
Cllr Boden said that these concerns are “completely valid”, but added that it’s appropriate to help Afghan refugees because of the UK’s history of involvement in the country, while we all “reach out with our hearts” to those displaced by the conflict in Ukraine.
The money is part of the £500m Local Authority Housing Fund announced by the DLUHC last month.
The Department says on their website that, while most of this will go towards Ukrainian refugees, it will also “provide homes for up to 500 Afghan families currently living in bridging hotels at a significant cost to taxpayers”.
Fenland plans to have purchased the nine homes by November 2023.
