Nearly 100 migrants to flood tiny village's brand-new homes which 'local folk could never afford'

A small village's estate of new-build homes will be filled by dozens migrants.

Residents in Stoke Heath, Shropshire, have vowed to fight a scheme which will place 83 "asylum seeker" families into an estate of 21 homes.

Concerns over the estate - dubbed "Migrant Street" by locals - have been raised to the Government by the area's MP and Shropshire Council.

One local, mother-of-three Emma O'Sullivan, told The Sun: "We were told that the new development would be social houses, which was fine, but no one moved in for a year.

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"Now we're told they will be used for asylum seekers and they’re not part of the social housing at all. We feel like we’ve been lied to.

"I've got three teenage girls and we're really worried. It's not who they are, it's how many there are. It'll overload the infrastructure."

Some of the town's locals fear more asylum seeking families may be coming.

Another villager, Kevin Plews, told the BBC: "We're not against people being put in houses, like if there was just four families coming here it wouldn't be a problem, but there's 121 people coming."

Another, Samantha Waters, said: "I'm absolutely terrified to be absolutely honest.

"I'm scared for myself and the other people on the estate and the children and I feel that we're going to become prisoners in our own homes."

One resident said it was "bang out of order" how migrants were being moved into brand-new homes worth around £250,000.

"It doesn't feel fair that these people will be living in shiny new homes free of charge, which hardworking local folk could never afford," the resident said.

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On Monday, Mark Pritchard, the Conservative MP for The Wrekin, urged Immigration Minister Alex Norris to meet with him to discuss the plans - and issued a dire warning as he did so.

"People are being kept in the dark. There has been secrecy - no consultation and no transparency. People have a right to know what is going on," he told the Commons.

Mr Norris said he was "well aware" of the matter and pledged to meet the Tory MP to discuss the issue.

Mr Pritchard had previously raised the issue to Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy at PMQs on June 17, warning that housing migrants in Stoke Heath would be a "35 per cent increase in the population over a matter of weeks".

The council has also written to the Home Secretary to "raise our strong concerns about this location and are awaiting a response before considering any further action".

Serco, the contractor responsible for housing asylum seekers in the region, said: "We work under the direction of the Home Office, who decide where ­people are placed, based on overall national demand.

"The Home Office determines how many people are to be accommodated in each local authority area and instruct us accordingly."

A Home Office spokesman said: "This Government is restoring order to the system by making record levels of asylum decisions, cutting claims by 12 per cent and increasing removals of illegal migrants by 41 per cent.

"We are working closely with local authorities to ramp up the closure of asylum hotels across the UK. Hotel numbers have more than halved since their peak and instead we are scaling up the use of large, basic accommodation for illegal migrants to reduce community impact."

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