Many thanks for the support so far. Please encourage family, friends and neighbours to sign - and people who have used the Stradey Park Hotel down the years.

Meanwhile . . .

This is a press release from the Carmarthenshire County Branch of Unison - 

Tory government wants to create a hostile environment for asylum seekers in Llanelli and elsewhere.

The rushed and secretive home office plan to house 207 asylum seekers in Stradey Park Hotel’s 77 rooms by July the 3rd without consultation with the local community and with Carmarthenshire County Council and Hywel Dda Health board and other public bodies only receiving the plans at the last minute has inevitably resulted in opposition to the plans not just by the community but by the council. Around four hundred people attended a meeting in the Selwyn Samuel Centre where the Furnace Action Committee was set up to oppose the plans.

Carmarthenshire County Council has accepted asylum seekers and their policy has been to locate them across the wider community in Carmarthenshire. Putting up to 207 asylum seekers in a hotel in Furnace, Llanelli will put significant pressure on council and health services locally that have been cut to the bone and underfunded for many years due to Tory cuts passed on by a Labour Welsh Government and administered by Plaid and Labour led Carmarthenshire County Council.

Local residents concern of how local services will cope are justified in this regard as is the impact this could have on them and their families. Also we understand that staff working at the hotel have already been dismissed to make way for home office staff due to the decision of the owners of Sterling Woodrow to work with the home office in housing asylum seekers and this could have a knock on effect of further jobs going in local companies supplying the hotel etc .

 This is hardly creating a welcoming environment for asylum seekers but as the title of this article states this Tory government wants to create the opposite, they want to create a hostile environment for asylum seekers. The Tories wish to scapegoat asylum seekers to bolster their dwindling support. Feeding off local people’s concerns the far right have joined the protests outside the hotel with the sole intention of whipping up racism and opposition to asylum seekers wherever they are housed.

It is not the fault of asylum seekers where they are placed or the consequences of this as they need to be housed in appropriate accommodation. How will 207 asylum seekers fit into seventy-seven rooms?

 It is the decision of the hotel owners that has resulted in people losing their jobs and it begs the question if the hotel was a going concern how much are the hotel owners being paid by the home office?

The council has a strategy to house asylum seekers across the wider community why doesn’t the government fund the council to do this? If council services and other public services had not been cut to the bone since 2010 by the Tories, the council and the health service would be a far better place to provide housing and services for all. This Tory government is treating the residents of Furnace and Llanelli and asylum seekers deplorably. Many asylum seekers have suffered trauma and face difficulties such as emotional and mental health problems and have to endure discrimination and racism. The home office and the far right are attempting to create a hostile atmosphere for those that have suffered too much already. We oppose the far right trying to whip up racism about this issue, but we understand the well founded concerns of the community of how will  services locally cope.   

Mark Evans

Branch Secretary

Carmarthenshire County UNISON Branch