10 more Syrian refugee families to be settled in Shropshire

Shropshire Council’s cabinet decided to resettle the families during 2018/19 at its meeting yesterday, using the support in place for the 14 Syrian families already in the county.

The authority welcomed 15 Syrian families, made up of 63 individuals, between June 2016 and March 2017 under the Government's Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme. One family has since moved to Birmingham.

Councillor Dean Carroll told the cabinet meeting that the Syrian families have settled “extremely well” in Shropshire.

“We already have the infrastructure and experience in place now to cope with more families," he added.

Only people deemed most at risk in Syria are brought to the UK under the scheme, which sees refugees settled around the country with the help of councils, such as Shropshire, that have volunteered to take part.

There is no cost to the local authority as the first 12 months of each refugee's resettlement costs is funded by the Government, with extra money available further down the line. Every refugee is put through security checks and given a full medical assessment before they arrive in the UK.

No to Asylum Dispersal Scheme

At the same meeting it was decided Shropshire will not take part in the separate Asylum Dispersal Scheme.

The scheme, which the Government has outsourced to G4S to run in the West Midlands, would mean welcoming a minimum of 25 individuals to the county.

A report presented to the cabinet recommended not taking part in the dispersal scheme due to concerns over a lack of infrastructure to support 25 single men, particularly given the lack of one-bedroom accommodation.

The report concluded that it would be difficult for the council to engage in both of the schemes and that Shropshire is better suited to support refugee families rather than individual adults.

"Learning from decisions made by a number of the Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children who have arrived in Shropshire, it is likely that as soon as they are able, the adult asylum seekers will seek out an area that meets their needs better than Shropshire can, thereby causing a constant churn of new individuals," the report added.

Councillor Carroll said: “I think we should say we don’t want to take part in the asylum dispersal programme as it’s a very different cohort of people than the resettlement programme.”

Progress

The current families have been resettled in four different locations throughout the county – five in Oswestry, five in Shrewsbury, three in Wem and two in Much Wenlock.

The move of the family from Wem to Birmingham saw the number of refugees in Shropshire drop to 59, however there were two births in 2017 and two more are due in 2018 - taking the total back up to 63.

Under the resettlement scheme the emphasis is on immediate settlement into local communities with no holding accommodation. Around 500 volunteers have helped support the families, with groups set up in both Oswestry and Shrewsbury.

Many of the refugees are volunteering at places such as local food banks, but have struggled to find paid employment due to a lack of local work experience and the need to improve conversational English.

Each adult spends about six hours a week learning English and the children have settled in well to their schools, according to the report.

Shropshire Council received £536,000 in government funding for the first year of the resettlement scheme.