S.In the heart of rural Essex, Braintree offers many options. London Liverpool Street Station is just an hour away by train or if you fancy a day at the beach you can travel south to around the same time until you reach Southend.
There is also plenty to do in the local area, with horse riding opportunities in the landscaped park in nearby Great Notley.
Although the city – and the surrounding area that makes up the municipality – is not without its problems, residents can claim to live in a beautiful area.
The regional median income is 9% above the national average – and the crime rate is among the lowest in the country. The borough is divided by a Westminster constituency line south of the city, which means that the Tory Big Beasts Priti Patel, the Secretary of the Interior, and James Cleverly are represented in the House of Commons.
Despite the relative prosperity and security of the district, the local authority has not yet made any commitments to accommodate Afghan refugees.
“People would welcome you,” said Jackie Pell, an independent Braintree councilor. “But they need more. In remote villages, where there is very little going on, they will stick out like sore thumbs. “
The Braintree Council supported an asylum seeker in the last available quarter (through June 2021), and there are seven Syrian refugees living in the area – despite a population of around 150,000.
This is in stark contrast to the urban municipality of Rochdale in the Greater Manchester area, which has 220,000 residents and housed 734 asylum seekers in the second quarter of this year alone.
“We have welcomed each other since the 19th century,” said Neil Emmott, Labor leader of the Rochdale Council. “But we don’t get any support from the central government and our services are overloaded.”
The system for distributing asylum seekers has long been criticized by some Council presidents as being unfair. It arises mainly because asylum seekers are accommodated by private companies that opt for accommodation in cheap and consequently disadvantaged areas, which in turn are more likely to be subordinate to an employment agency.
“I don’t think there is any resistance to [refugees]”Said James Abbott, a Green Braintree councilor. “But there are particular problems in the Braintree district because the community no longer has its own housing stock.”
There is not only a lack of social housing, but also affordable housing in general. According to real estate website Rightmove, the average price for a house in Braintree is £ 325,000.
“Thousands upon thousands of houses are being built right now [in Braintree]. I could imagine that we are one of the areas with the highest housing growth in the southeast. But the prices are sky high, ”said Abbott. “They have three- and four-bed houses for over half a million.”
Rochdale is now the 15th most deprived parish in England, according to government figures, with the average house price being £ 188,000.
“Districts like ours have a considerable number of cheap accommodation, so we are encouraged to take in more refugees and asylum seekers. So some of the more affluent areas don’t have to, ”Emmott said.
“If we want to take in some of the new refugees from Afghanistan, that’s fine – but for that we need the funds from central London.”
A Braintree Council spokesman said, “We have worked with partners in a coordinated response to ensure we can effectively and efficiently support all refugees entering our district.”
