Shropshire Council chief in refugees pledge

Shropshire Council leader Keith Barrow said that although the authority has not yet made a formal decision over how it will offer help during the crisis, he said he will work with the community to find the best response.

A humanitarian aid group which has attracted almost 1,000 members is looking for items to send to the refugees in Calais.

Started by Francesca Cawood, Shrewsbury Donations to Calais will be heading for London next month with a fleet of trucks stuffed full of items donated by townspeople.

Francesca began her appeal for aid just over a week ago and is now filling a storage unit in Shrewsbury with items ready for a trip to London where they will be delivered to CalAid which runs mercy trips to those in the camps in France.

Francesca said: "I felt I had to do something. We are not a political group but a humanitarian one. We are responding to a human need that is right on our doorstep."

Francesca started the group, which she is running via Facebook, after seeing the harrowing pictures of the camps on the television. "I just started it up with a couple of friends of mine and it has snowballed from there. We now have almost 1,000 members which is overwhelming. Everyone is offering something to us to help out with a dreadful humanitarian crisis."

But instead of throwing open an appeal for any type of donation, she is appealing for a very specific type of item. "We know that only about 10 per cent of those in the camps are women and children. The vast majority are men and it is items for them that we need.

"We have decided to keep our remit to just going with what CalAid has requested. It is a very specific list of items and sizes and this is what we are looking for.

"They do not have the space to store other items which are not as desperately needed and nor do we so it makes sense to just send what is requested now," said Francesca, 38.

So far donations have poured in including tents, training shoes and hiking boots, plastic bags, jogging bottoms, pots and pans and jackets. They are being stored at a storage space at Battlefield near Shrewsbury and the unit is already close to capacity.

Want to help? Here's who to contact in your town:

Bridgnorth: Sadie Brazier on 07853 066293

Church Stretton: Douglow's 54 High Street Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm

Ellesmere: Sara Wright on 07969 869379

Ludlow: nicjnorth@aol.com or (01584) 878528; clare.e.whitehead@gmail.com

Much Wenlock: kerriannatyler@gmail.com

Newport: Kirsty.finchett@hotmail.co.uk

Oswestry: Chalk, 17 Leg Street

Shrewsbury: Storage King, Archers Way, Battlefield Enterprise Park SY1 3GA

Liberal Democrat councillors called for the crisis to be discussed at the council's next full meeting on September 24.

But Councillor Barrow has moved the matter forward, with the cabinet now set to discuss plans tomorrow.

"Our hearts reach out to those affected by war and other atrocities," he said.

"Shropshire communities are already looking to help, generously offering temporary accommodation and other support.

"We will continue to work and collaborate with our communities and other local authorities in order to secure the best solutions and outcomes for refugees.

"Councillor David Simmonds has already spoken on behalf of the Local Government Association to say that government should assist and fund refugees and we support this position. In the meantime we will put plans in place to take and support refugees in readiness for our government to appropriately respond."

Andy Boddington, Lib Dem Shropshire Councillor for Ludlow North, said it is vital all parties work together.

He said he had first raised the issue in March and has since been contacted directly by 12 Ludlow families willing to help.

He said: "We are pleased the council is going to take action because the sooner we get these refugees into the county the better. A lot of people have been asking me how they can help and families have said they will house them temporarily while the council sorts everything out.

"There needs to be a link between Shropshire and the refugees getting here, which is really for the council and other groups to sort out. We can't solve the problem here in Shropshire but we can do our bit. "

UK will take 20,000 refugees says PM

Britain will resettle up to 20,000 refugees from Syria over the next four and a half years, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

Mr Cameron told the House of Commons that the UK would live up to its moral responsibility towards the people forced from their homes by the forces of president Bashar Assad and the Islamic State terror group.

He said that Britain would take in vulnerable refugees only from camps in the region, and not those who have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe in their thousands over recent months.

Mr Cameron told MPs: "We are proposing that Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the rest of this Parliament.

"In doing so, we will continue to show the world that this country is a country of extraordinary compassion."

The European Commission is understood to be preparing to ask EU member states to take part in a mandatory scheme to resettle 160,000 migrants who have already arrived in the continent.

French president Francois Hollande has said France is ready to take in 24,000 people. But Mr Cameron told MPs that because Britain is not part of the Schengen open border arrangements which cover many EU states, it was able to "decide its own approach".

"We will continue with our approach of taking refugees from the camps and elsewhere in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon," he said. "This provides refugees with a more direct and safe route to the UK, rather than risking the hazardous journey to Europe which has tragically cost so many lives."

Refugees coming to Britain will be chosen under established UN procedures and will be granted five-year humanitarian protection visas, said Mr Cameron.

Pressure to admit more Syrians has grown since the publication of photographs of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who drowned with his mother and brother trying to cross from Turkey to Greece by boat.

Mr Cameron told the House of Commons yesterday: "The whole country has been deeply moved by the heartbreaking images we've seen over the past few days and it's absolutely right that Britain should fulfil its moral responsibility to help those refugees, just as we've done so proudly throughout our history."