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Asylum seekers? Not here, not even for a few minutes
Asylum seekers? Not here, not even for a few minutes
Martin Bright
Sunday April 25, 2004
The Observer
Until now Portishead has been famous for little other than the Nineties pop band of the same name. Yet the West Country seaside town is now divided by what is becoming the most controversial 120 square metres of property in Britain.
A routine Home Office planning appli
ation to change the use of two rooms in an obscure government office in the town has split the usually sedate community right down the middle.
The problem is that the Home Office has admitted the ro
oms
will be used to interview asylum seekers, provoking a vocal campaign to make it clear such people wi
ll not be welcome in Portishead. Letters to the local press accuse the protesters of xenophobia and racism, while the anti-asylum seeker lobby in turn accuses its opponents of political correctness.
The Immigration Service office is housed on a business park next to a new housing estate, the Vale, which was advertised as prestigious. The campaign began when rumours spread that a house sale had fallen through when the purchaser found out about the 'Asylum Screening Centre'.
Portishead, just outside Bristol, has been transformed with the closure of its power station and docks into an exclusive post-industrial boom town complete with marina and million-pound yachts - day-tripping a
sylum seekers were not part of the deal.
The campaign has at its heart a sophisticated website providing detailed arguments for opposition to the centre, including concerns about increas
ed t
raff
ic and late
working by staff at the offices. It includes a series of photographs showing the proximity of the c
entre to homes, suggesting serious fears about residents' potential contact with refugees going to and from interviews.
Home Office officials have been taken by surprise by the strength of feeling in Portishead. Previous campaigns have centred on government plans to build large residential centres for asylum seekers in rural areas where local concerns involvedan influx of large numbers of outsiders.
But not a single refugee is going to live in Portishead. The Home Office has said no more than 50 interviews a week will be carried out in the offices, strictly by appointment. Some could last only a few minutes. In some weeks there will be no interviews at all.
The Immigrati
on Service has had an office in the town for five years, but nobody seemed to notice or care much until the planning application was made. There has never been a single reported inci
dent of
crime, n
or any violence inv
olving an asylum seeker in the town.
Yet furious local people told a public meeting of more th
an 300 people last week that they would be afraid to let their children play in the street if the Home Office was given the go-ahead for its new interview rooms.
The intensity of feeling is reflected at the local North Somerset district council, which rejected the proposals last week, citing problems with transport links. The committee dealing with the application, like the town, was deeply split, with six votes in favour and six votes against the plans. They were finally rejected only on the chairman's casting vote. The Home Office will now have to decide whether to go ahead with out approval or seek a public inquiry.
The committee chair, Labour councillor Glyn Duck, said
he disapproved of the racist element of the campaign, but voted against the plans because the hourly bus service from Bristol was not good enough.
'Transport
hadn't
been conside
red. Neither had the welfar
e of the asylum seekers. If they could have been collected from Bristol and returned after their interviews
it would have been different,' Duck said.
The hostility at last week's packed public meeting, held in the assembly hall at Portishead's secondary school, was tangible. Any attempt to speak in favour of the centre was shouted down.
Annette Hennessey, 42, a lifelong Portishead resident, was the only person to take the microphone to speak openly in favour of the asylum centre. 'There was a lot of aggression and jeering going on,' she told The Observer.
'I felt I had to say something, and I am proud that I did. People talk about transport and facilities and say they are not racist, but this is really about not wanting asylum seekers here.&
#39;
Others have been horrified by the sudden anti-asylum seeker sentiment. John Vickers, a minister at Gordano Valley church who has lived in Portishea
d for 18 years
, was booed when
he told the meeting that the town
should welcome the asylum seekers if the Home Office eventually went ahead with the proposals.
'It is a sad day for the
town,' Vickers said this weekend. 'I feel very saddened by the whole affair. We would not be having meetings of 300 people if a firm of solicitors or accountants set up an office here seeing 10 clients a day. People were objecting to asylum seekers walking down their street. If that's not racist, I don't know what is.'
A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'Clearly we are disappointed at the outcome and are seriously considering an appeal.' In fact, officials may regret making the application at all, because it was not legally necessary. Their openness may be their undoing. The Home Office may be forced to push the plans throu
gh in the face of serious local hostility when, if it had altered its procedures quietly, no one in the town would have noticed the quiet coming and
going of a handfu
l of outsiders.
Asylum seekers? Not here, not even for a few minutes
Asylum seekers? Not here, not even for a few minutes
Martin Bright
Sunday April 25, 2004
The Observer
Until now Portishead has been famous for little other than the Nineties pop band of the same name. Yet the West Country seaside town is now divided by what is becoming the most controversial 120 square metres of property in Britain.
A routine Home Office planning appli
ation to change the use of two rooms in an obscure government office in the town has split the usually sedate community right down the middle.
The problem is that the Home Office has admitted the ro
oms
will be used to interview asylum seekers, provoking a vocal campaign to make it clear such people wi
ll not be welcome in Portishead. Letters to the local press accuse the protesters of xenophobia and racism, while the anti-asylum seeker lobby in turn accuses its opponents of political correctness.
The Immigration Service office is housed on a business park next to a new housing estate, the Vale, which was advertised as prestigious. The campaign began when rumours spread that a house sale had fallen through when the purchaser found out about the 'Asylum Screening Centre'.
Portishead, just outside Bristol, has been transformed with the closure of its power station and docks into an exclusive post-industrial boom town complete with marina and million-pound yachts - day-tripping a
sylum seekers were not part of the deal.
The campaign has at its heart a sophisticated website providing detailed arguments for opposition to the centre, including concerns about increas
ed t
raff
ic and late
working by staff at the offices. It includes a series of photographs showing the proximity of the c
entre to homes, suggesting serious fears about residents' potential contact with refugees going to and from interviews.
Home Office officials have been taken by surprise by the strength of feeling in Portishead. Previous campaigns have centred on government plans to build large residential centres for asylum seekers in rural areas where local concerns involvedan influx of large numbers of outsiders.
But not a single refugee is going to live in Portishead. The Home Office has said no more than 50 interviews a week will be carried out in the offices, strictly by appointment. Some could last only a few minutes. In some weeks there will be no interviews at all.
The Immigrati
on Service has had an office in the town for five years, but nobody seemed to notice or care much until the planning application was made. There has never been a single reported inci
dent of
crime, n
or any violence inv
olving an asylum seeker in the town.
Yet furious local people told a public meeting of more th
an 300 people last week that they would be afraid to let their children play in the street if the Home Office was given the go-ahead for its new interview rooms.
The intensity of feeling is reflected at the local North Somerset district council, which rejected the proposals last week, citing problems with transport links. The committee dealing with the application, like the town, was deeply split, with six votes in favour and six votes against the plans. They were finally rejected only on the chairman's casting vote. The Home Office will now have to decide whether to go ahead with out approval or seek a public inquiry.
The committee chair, Labour councillor Glyn Duck, said
he disapproved of the racist element of the campaign, but voted against the plans because the hourly bus service from Bristol was not good enough.
'Transport
hadn't
been conside
red. Neither had the welfar
e of the asylum seekers. If they could have been collected from Bristol and returned after their interviews
it would have been different,' Duck said.
The hostility at last week's packed public meeting, held in the assembly hall at Portishead's secondary school, was tangible. Any attempt to speak in favour of the centre was shouted down.
Annette Hennessey, 42, a lifelong Portishead resident, was the only person to take the microphone to speak openly in favour of the asylum centre. 'There was a lot of aggression and jeering going on,' she told The Observer.
'I felt I had to say something, and I am proud that I did. People talk about transport and facilities and say they are not racist, but this is really about not wanting asylum seekers here.&
#39;
Others have been horrified by the sudden anti-asylum seeker sentiment. John Vickers, a minister at Gordano Valley church who has lived in Portishea
d for 18 years
, was booed when
he told the meeting that the town
should welcome the asylum seekers if the Home Office eventually went ahead with the proposals.
'It is a sad day for the
town,' Vickers said this weekend. 'I feel very saddened by the whole affair. We would not be having meetings of 300 people if a firm of solicitors or accountants set up an office here seeing 10 clients a day. People were objecting to asylum seekers walking down their street. If that's not racist, I don't know what is.'
A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'Clearly we are disappointed at the outcome and are seriously considering an appeal.' In fact, officials may regret making the application at all, because it was not legally necessary. Their openness may be their undoing. The Home Office may be forced to push the plans throu
gh in the face of serious local hostility when, if it had altered its procedures quietly, no one in the town would have noticed the quiet coming and
going of a handfu
l of outsiders.
