Asylum mess

HUGH ROBERTSON SLAMS GOVERNMENT OVER SITTINGBOURNE HOTEL The decision to use Sittingbourne's only major hotel for asylum seekers has been condemned outright by Hugh Robertson.

The Coniston, has been purchased for asylum seekers by The National Asylum Support Service to house 111 asylum seekers from 29 January 2003.

Hugh said: "This is wholly and totally the government's fault. They have allowed the asylum system to deteriorate into chaos. This is a last ditch, panic move.

"For a whole variety of obvious reasons, it is difficult to think of anywhere less suitable to house asylum seekers than a small hotel in the centre of a town.

"What the government should be doing is to house all asylum seekers in secure accommodation centres whilst their applications are processed.

"These secure accommodation centres would provide all the facilities necessary to help asylum seekers on arrival in this country such as legal advice, country specialists, language training and medical care. Anybody genuinely fleeing persecution in their own country should welcome the sanctuary that a secure centre would provide.

"The Sittingbourne plan is simply the wrong approach in the wrong place."