West Midlands villagers react over decision to house 121 asylum seekers on their housing estate

Some parents, however, watch on from the gates of their front gardens, worry etched on many of their faces.

Watch the video as we speak to locals

The news that 121 asylum seekers are to be put in houses nearby rocked a small community in Stoke Heath this week.

“It was like a bomb’s gone off and you’ve got 10 minutes to get out,” said Melanie Almond, a mum who has been living in the area near Market Drayton for around 10 years.

“It was a complete shock. I found out on the internet. We couldn’t believe it.”

“It’s disturbing,” added neighbour Mark Moore. “We’ve stopped our daughters from going to the play park.”

The bombshell was revealed as Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard hit out at the move at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, saying Stoke Heath is “completely the wrong place to house large numbers of asylum seekers, whether that be families or single men”.

The Shropshire Star spoke to several families and individuals living near the site where they are going to be housed.

Many raised serious concerns about the safety of women and children, with a lot of their worries fuelled by stories in the media about violence and sexual assaults linked to asylum seekers.

Some were also baffled at the decision to put migrants somewhere with next to no local amenities and poor public transport links.

A lot were also bitterly disappointed that the houses will not be available to local families or relatives of people living in the area.

Others suggested they would prefer to see them used to support British homeless people or military veterans.

One resident, Dave Cooper, said he moved here from Birmingham less than a year ago, as migration had become out of control where he lived.

“I came here to get away from this,” he said. “Nobody told us about this. Nobody seemed to know about it.”

Read more: Council writes to Home Office over plans to house 121 asylum seekers in Shropshire village

He added: “There’s nothing here for them. There are no bus routes. What are they going to do next? Give them cars as well?

“It’s a quiet area here. There is no trouble at all.

“We never would have moved here if we knew this was going to happen.”

Julie Wright, another neighbour, said: “If it is young men, what are they going to do? I don’t think it’s right.”

Emma O’Sullivan, a resident who lives with her partner and three daughters, is in the process of launching a petition to get the decision reversed.

“We are coming together as a community,” she said. “We are being let down. We’ve been trying to make as much noise as we possibly can to prevent it.”

Immigration has been a huge political issue recently, with seemingly little nuance to be had in public debate.

If you want to allow asylum seekers into the UK - illegal or otherwise - you are accused of not caring about British values or the safety of women and children.

But if you oppose immigrants being allowed into the country, you run the risk of being accused of racism or being far-right.

Hotels have been used in Shropshire to house asylum seekers, but it has not faced the same influx as other areas of the country.

Now residents in Stoke Heath are facing up to the prospect of a large number of foreign nationals arriving on their doorstep.

When they spoke to the Shropshire Star, residents shared compassion for people fleeing war-torn nations, and that someone has to help people in need.

But putting them “in the middle of nowhere on a Shropshire housing estate”, they believe, is not the answer.

Mark was one of many who insisted the community is not opposed to asylum seekers moving in because of any kind of anti-racial sentiment.

“There are Polish people here. My daughters I adopted are Bulgarian. We all get on.”

He added that he is “scared” about the prospect of asylum seekers arriving in large numbers.

“It’s a lovely place to live, but at the moment we’re getting our house valued because of this. “

When asked about the wider issue of immigration, Emma said: “It’s a difficult one. We need immigration as a country, and sometimes they are coming from war-torn countries. But they need to give something back, and I believe they might just be taking.”

Stoke Heath is most well known for having Shropshire’s only operational jail.

Melanie’s main concern about the asylum seekers arriving is the safety of local children.

“I’d rather they opened the prison gates and let the prisoners out than let people come here who we don’t know anything about,” she said.

The community is preparing to gather for a meeting this Sunday evening (June 20) at Stoke on Tern Parish Hall at 6pm.

Many of the residents we spoke to will be there.

“If we don’t do anything about it, nobody will,” Melanie said.