'Peddling fear': Heated exchanges on immigration and asylum seekers as former Dudley MP calls on council to act on hotels
Dudley councillors clashed at a meeting as a petition by a former MP calling on the council to take action over asylum seekers and HMOs was debated.
Former Conservative MP for Dudley North Marco Longhi had provided the council with a petition with 3,229 signatures, 3,086 of them electronic, concerning the housing of illegal migrants and asylum seekers, and which was to be debated at the council meeting on Monday (October 20).
The petition calls on Dudley Council "to reject the relocation of illegal migrants/asylum seekers by HM Home Office to any hotels within our borough", to seek injunctions on hotels being used for such a purpose and "to ensure that in future all hotels in our borough remain open to the general public".
Mr Longhi, who left the Tories and is now the chair of Dudley Reform UK, gave a speech before the debate, saying that he was speaking on behalf of residents who felt their voices were being ignored and who were concerned about an unchecked spread of unauthorised HMOs and the repurposing of buildings for asylum accommodation without proper planning, consent or consultation.
He said: "These residents are not extremists and they are not agitators, they are ordinary, decent people who love this borough and who want to feel safe in their own communities. This is not about hostility, this is about fairness, safety and accountability.
"An article for direction requires that smaller HMOs have planning permission, which is a good policy and Dudley has it, but policy without informal enforcement is meaningless and we need action that residents can see.
"I would ask the council to do the following: publish a list of all HMOs quarterly enforcement data reports so that the public can see what the council is doing, what action is taken and, within identified timeframes.
"In considering applications, I ask that the council gives fuller weight to the fear of crime as a legitimate material planning consideration and to seek further specialist legal advice so that the council is ready to apply for and defend injunctions if it needed to."
Mr Longhi also made reference to a court ruling around the Bell Hotel in Epping, acknowledged his "respect" for the council's planning and enforcement teams and said the answer lay in criticism of political leadership.
'Serco treats us with contempt'
In response, Dudley Council leader Councillor Patrick Harley said the council had done a lot of work to ensure the borough had the lowest numbers of asylum seekers in the West Midlands. He said that Mr Longhi had not spoken out in the same way against Conservative Home Secretaries during his time in Parliament.
He said: "Dudley, in all my time in this position, has had one hotel occupied by Serco, which is one too many for me, but one it is, and Dudley has, from the last data available to myself, 669 asylum seekers, of which 51 are in the one hotel.
"As leader, I've held to account both Serco and the Home Office under different governments, but I cannot recall Marco as the MP ever calling out Conservative Home Secretaries for the shocking way Serco operates and treats councils with contempt, and they do treat us with contempt.
