Residents of a Suffolk village have expressed outrage after asylum seekers were moved into luxury £300,000 townhouses, complete with en-suite bathrooms, electric vehicle charging points, and underfloor heating. The four three-bedroom properties, privately owned and with a rental value of £1,200 per month, have been leased by Serco on behalf of the Home Office to house migrant families rent-free while their applications are processed.
The move, quietly announced last week, has sparked anger among locals who say they were kept in the dark. Gardener Clive Bloomfield, 62, who has lived in the village his entire life, told The Sun: "It's all just happened without us knowing about it. Our opinions don't seem to count." His wife Susan, 64, added: "We're paying for all of this. Why are we working hard for asylum seekers to just get everything for free?"
Mother-of-two Laura Garland, 40, said the move had caused uproar in the close-knit community. "There are people born in this country that pay taxes who can't get housing. Then you get these families who are put straight into brand new three-bedroom houses. The worst thing is — none of us knew," she said. Local joiner Dylan Keseru, 26, expressed disbelief, noting that many teenagers in the village would like the opportunity to buy a place there.
However, not all residents opposed the arrivals. Lizzie Simmonds revealed that her mother and other villagers have been providing basic necessities to help the families settle in. "If people need to come here, let them. Let them have the opportunities that they weren't given before," she said. At least one migrant family is understood to have already moved in, believed to have arrived through legal routes before making asylum applications when their visas expired.
The controversy comes amid severe housing shortages in the region; Suffolk council's latest figures show almost 800 people were on waiting lists for council or housing association properties last year. Nationally, by July, over 106,000 people in the UK were receiving asylum support, with 32,000 housed in expensive hotels and 70,000 in other accommodation including private dwellings. Earlier this year, Serco was offering private landlords five-year guaranteed rental deals to house migrants, including free property management and full repair and maintenance.
