Visgir1
Apparently, Piddington has no shops, cafés or pubs. Social life centres on the church and the village hall, leaving residents fearing that asylum seekers are going to be rather bored.
Oh, so it's concern for their recreation that's behind the 'revolt', but otherwise it's 'wonderful'? Maybe they could arrange beetle drives or community singing evenings in the church hall for the newcomers. It needn't be hard to make them feel welcome.
Assuming that there are at least a few grains of truth in all of this, I think a disused barracks is as good a place as any to house asylum seekers until they are processed, but also that the processing should happen quickly, and the people dispersed to other areas for long-term stay if they qualify.
My hometown used to be a small market town with historical buildings and a distinctive 'vibe'. Families with generations of children using local schools and so on. Over the past 15 years or so there have been numerous housing estates built on the outskirts, and larger old buildings converted to (usually retirement) flats. That's a different issue, as on the whole the houses are of the '4-5 bed - each with a bathroom' type, so the 'incomers' are predominantly middle class, and spend money in the town, but all the same the nature of the town has changed, and a lot of older residents don't like it. A lot of younger ones are unhappy, too, as their children are being pushed out of schools that great-grandparents attended, to make way for newcomers from outside of the area, and the preponderance of retirement flats has meant the number of older people's shops such as Seasalt/Crew Company and the like have replaced those for younger people and those on lower incomes. Local accents are heard less often than other ones, and the nature of the town is different as a result. A settled community, with all the pros and cons that go with that, is now a generic place with a lovely old centre and boxy estates on the periphery. It has lost the distinctiveness that attracted the newcomers in the first place.
People don't like change when it happens fast.
I see no reason why having a 'nice' house in a 'nice' area should mean that you have a right to be protected from the sort of changes that can just happen to those with a 'what's the word to use here?' house in a 'less nice' area; but I do understand people feeling upset by a sudden change in their environment, whether it's asylum seekers or young families taking school/surgery places and clogging up car parks with SUVs so they can live in a 'desirable' town.
It's far better to aim for change to happen more slowly. We need more homes for young people and growing families, just as we need retirement flats and places for refugees to be housed. Putting over 1000 of any of those people (older, young, families, refugees) in a small area is going to be stressful for the residents if it all happens at once and is a long-term arrangement, but that would be true in a council estate as much as in a 'nice' area, in my opinion.
