Council approves £1m plan to house 3 Afghan families ‘funded by poorest in society’

A North Yorkshire councillor has spoken out after nearly £1million in spending has been approved to house three Afghan families.

It comes as more than 30,000 Afghans have come to the UK under resettlement schemes. The aid was granted after the Taliban takeover of Kabul. It grants asylum to groups it deems at risk if they stay in Afghanistan.

Now councils around the country have been given Government grants to provide fixed housing for Afghan refugees, rather than hotels and other temporary accommodations.

But Councillor Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff believes this should not be at the expense of current council tenants.

Speaking to GB News, she said: “There is what’s called the larger resettlement and this is a requirement where councils have to acquire houses with around four bedroomed houses to house larger Afghan families.

“So in this scheme, what we’ve had is the council has gone and sourced from a developer, three brand new four bedroom houses [in Selby, North Yorkshire] at a cost of £1million, of which it receives about £444,000 from the Government.

“The rest is to be funded through borrowing against what’s referred to as the Housing Revenue Account. That’s there to protect council tenants from councils using their rent and other matters.”

Councillor Donohue-Moncrieff sympathises with the duty to house Afghan refugees. But she says this should not be at the expense of council house tenants.

MORE FROM YORKSHIRE

• ‘Epidemic’ of overflowing bins in Sheffield attracting rats and deterring visitors
• ‘Bring back free speech’: Veterans praise those who gave their lives for freedom during brunch club
• Council row erupts after protesters block workers from chopping down oak tree in bitter feud

“While the Government is getting rid of hotel costs for housing individuals, what it’s not telling the public is that then has been passed on in debt to some of the poorest people in our society,” she said.

“If we can intervene in the market to support the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, why aren’t we intervening in the market to support those who the Government says that there isn’t enough affordable housing for?

“I have no problem with helping people from Afghanistan, but I don’t know why we aren’t helping people who are struggling to get onto the housing ladder?

“If we can do it for one scheme, we should be doing it for everyone. Treat everyone equally is my view.”

The three, four bedroom, houses for Afghan families in Selby will cost nearly £977,000.

In a statement, North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for housing, Cllr Simon Myers, said: “The Local Authority Housing Fund is made available by central Government, and the homes can only be offered to families from the Afghan Resettlement Scheme. Therefore, we are not able to use it to invest in existing housing stock.

“The scheme is vital in supporting those who risked their lives to help British Armed Forces in Afghanistan and were forced to flee.

“While these properties are available to families from the scheme in the first instance, they are then offered through the North Yorkshire Home Choice allocations to those looking to rent social housing. The grant funding also allows us to buy bigger and a wider range of property types.

“We have recently pledged to increase our housing stock by an additional 500 homes over the next five years to provide more affordable homes to North Yorkshire residents.

“We have also allocated almost £297million within our 2025/26 Budget for investment for more homes and improvements to existing ones to improve standards for our tenants.”

The Local Government Authority is also working with Government to improve access to data on asylum and resettlement so councils can both plan and monitor impacts. Find out more HERE