Thanet council plan to buy 9 homes for Ukrainian and Afghan refugee families

The homes will eventually be re-let to people on the council’s housing register

New homes

Thanet council has been allocated £1.19m of government funding towards the purchase of nine properties to temporarily accommodate Ukrainian and Afghan refugees.

Cabinet members at Thanet District Council are to consider a report into the allocation of funding through the Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) at their meeting on Thursday 15 June.

If approved, the council will have to provide match funding of £1.996m. This will be come from the council’s housing capital programme and the cost will be covered from the rent paid by tenants.

The homes will be newly built and bought by the council from a developer. The homes must be purchased by November 2023 and the council says it will not impact on the council’s existing approved new build programme.

It is expected that in the long term, the homes will be re-let to people on the council’s housing register.

The funding is part of  a national £500 million scheme to enable local authorities to purchase properties in their area to accommodate both Ukrainian and Afghan refugee households for an initial period of 3 years. The funding allocation – which covers around 40% of the cost- was offered to 182 local authorities in England, who were deemed to have the greatest need.

Cllr Helen Whitehead, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Housing, said: “As a council we face significant challenges in provision, but we continue to do our best to rise to those challenges. We have a significant need for social and genuinely affordable homes and will work to secure funding for this.

“Accommodation for all vulnerable members of society needs to be prioritised, and although further funding is needed, it is essential to use all potential funding to support all residents.

“Support from the Local Authority Housing Fund will allow us to provide homes urgently needed for refugee families. Once no longer needed by these families, the homes will become part of our social housing stock, which continues to be in high demand in the district.

“This support is in addition to our approved building programme; we will continue to support our vulnerable residents, and provide social and genuinely affordable housing for those who need it, as part of a new, ambitious and determined approach to social housing for Thanet.”

Discussions have taken place with a developer currently building at a site near Westwood Cross with the aim of buying 6 x 3 bed units and 3 x 4 bed units. The properties are nearing completion and will be ready by the end of this month.

Those eligible for the homes will be people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness or who live in unsuitable Temporary Accommodation (including bridging accommodation) and who also are part of one of the below:

  • Afghan Citizen Resettlement Scheme (including eligible British Nationals under this scheme) (ACRS),
  • Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP),
  • Ukraine Family Scheme (UFS),
  • Homes for Ukraine (HFU),
  • Ukraine Extension Scheme (UES)

 

58 Comments

  1. Nice of them!

    How about helping out our own first and foremost!
    Plenty of families would love help but guess they don’t fit the criteria!

    • No they don’t Oh No! This country has let down thousands of Afghan refugees who have escaped to Pakistan, after they worked hard for the British armed services! They feel betrayed, and I don’t blame them! Now the Russian have blown up a dam in Ukraine creating tens of thousands of new refugees, which the free world must help. There is a contest going on world wide between the mostly democratic progressive countries, and those led my the criminally insane! And that would include people like Putin, and Trump!

    • It’s a shame the conservatives are a dire mess, because this is the alternative. A few years of virtue signalling nonsense that will cost us the tax payer while our own population have to work to the bone and go without

  2. Utterly shameful waste of all taxpayer money, both centrally and within this district. Thanet has for decades had some of the worst deprivation markers. It annually received European money for decades to supplement Thanet’s needs.
    What’s wrong with these virtue signalling individuals? It’s precisely the people who voted them in are going to be worst affected by this stupidity.

  3. Utter disgrace. English born males in Thanet who have contributed to society and then fallen on hard times and who are homeless get offered a tent and told to find somewhere safe whilst people who have never contributed with zero connections to the local area get given a house ? What a joke

    • They risked thier lives for members of our armed forces. I’d say thats more of a contribution than most of us will ever make. They are not to blame for the lack of afforadable lack of housing, that’s down the goverment, they could legislate, build and tax to change the housing market if they wanted to, it is literally their Job.

      • Yeah and so did thousands of our grandads and great grandads. Who takes care of their widows now? They had to sell everything just to afford care when they need supporting most. Don’t get me wrong every human deserves the basics but I see our own elderly people in absolute poverty with no help at all 😭

      • Who did Violet? All the refugees coming over from Afghanistan and the Ukraine to Thanet looking to be homed ? Think again dear, a very small amount indeed ! Now if TDC were offering these homes to people waiting on their list for years then I would congratulate them but it is not the case. Mind you we have been telling you this for years that refugees are homed before local people but it has always been denied by the authorities before!

  4. Worth stressing that this money to purchase housing that will eventually revert to the general housing stock. Given the Government putting half the purchase price in, Thanet Council would be wise to give this serious consideration

    • Don’t use common sense. We have to bemoan it. Blame Labour and mumble about the suffering of white males.

      It’s DISGUSTING.

      Better in my day.

      Mumble mumble.

    • So the families that are initially given these homes will be forced to move out at some point to make way for those on the local housing register? Unless the families so helped by the scheme earn enough to buy their own home the only way they’ll move is into more social housing elsewhere, so notionally the money thanet spends eventually goes to locals but only displaces the cost elsewhere. All just smoke and mirrors.

  5. Wow. Brand new 4 bedroom houses given out, even if only for three years. Meanwhile people who are horrifically overcrowded just have to wait I guess.

  6. Once again English are pushed to the bottom of the list as parliament and local councils feel it necessary to keep a good impression with the world. If only the world could see us as we really are No affordable homes no drs no nhs unless end of life no teachers for our children and strikes Ona continuous run Not such a pretty picture to paint yet we live it daily and ask us to help other countries when we are overrun with illegals and can’t even afford to heat our homes unless we go without some luxuries like food We have more food banks now than we ever had after the war but differencebeing we all helped one another in families

  7. So in 3 years time, what happens to the people who were lucky enough to be given a brand new 3 or 4 bed home? Are they to be kicked out, back on to the streets or will the Labour run council decide these people are now entitled to another new, bigger home in a better area?
    Also, is our new Labour run council predicting in 3 years time that there will be no new refugees demanding their free house?
    Therefore, it is not hard to see that these properties will never be become part of Thanet’s social housing stock.

  8. Good to see Thanet council getting their priorities right it must make them feel good but of course sod the locals typical Labour Council good for nothing.

  9. Annecy stabbing: Nursery children stabbed by Syrian asylum seeker in France attack
    next, it will be here

  10. not much to add realy , people are just starting to wake up as to what fools we are being taken for.

  11. Well done Labour, you’ve just alienated the very many who are already in desperate housing need.

  12. Meanwhile, there’s an unfortunate young woman living in a tent in Cornwall Gardens (CT9) near the roundabout.

    • Dear Ms. Wright-Thruem;

      I visited the lady in question several times, and she was supported into accommodation recently.

      If she has returned, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] and I will offer further support.

      Very best wishes,

      Helen.

      • Thank you Helen. Good to know Louise has now been found accommodation, and not so vulnerable.

  13. Thanet Dictrict Circus…. run by the clowns. Matters not they are labour as years of various councils with the assistance of the DFL’s (dross from London) have turned Thanet into a toilet.

    • I am one of those DFL’s that you like to insult, having moved here 23 years ago. As a family, we have set up 3 businesses, each that have used locals for staff as well as local companies as suppliers etc, plus much more.
      When we moved here, it was the locals who told us that the people of Thanet are all inbreds, and looking around, it’s often hard to disagree with them.
      So, instead of slating DFL’s, you should really be thanking them for trying to create jobs & wealth for others, whilst also helping to increase the gene pool.

      • I’m one of the “dross from London” too. Some of the comments on this thread are absolutely dreadful. Their writers show no sympathy, no imagination, no idea how difficult and painful it must be for people coming from their homelands which are now warzones.

        • I came down from Medway 35 years ago.
          30 years ago I was Chair of the local group. Going into schools talking about Human Rights before it was ever on The Curriculum. We helped and supported brave people trying to make their home countries better. We often got requests for help from Alf Dubbs, the guy who started all the refugee aid business. We didn’t offer assistance, because our aims were diametrically opposed. Countries don’t get changed for the better when it’s young men run away. How on earth do you think Britain became a safe haven in the first place?
          In 2003 I stood for Council on a Stop the War ticket. I didn’t get elected of course, but I did get votes. I wouldn’t have needed to if warmonger Blair and his U.S. cronies had heeded the lessons of the two Afghan Wars.
          I stand against this s T.D.C. decision. The young men should go back to their countries of origin and do what our ancestors did here. Fight to make their homeland a better place and, look after the vulnerable women they left behind.

          • You are quite right Harry. The regime change attempts by the West and the likes of Blair, and the acquiescence of majority of puppet MPs of all colours, have all caused chaos and destruction for a long time across the world. And continues just now in Ukraine. The misreporting on these situations from the controlled corporate mainstream media is of course awful. Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi would be happy (and I see his history has been digitally re-written recently as well).

          • In response to M.M.Rees’ enquiry.
            Try reading Christopher Lee’s “This Sceptred Isle”.
            Paying particular attention to all of it!😁

          • “I want to know now” rather smacks of the “give me, get me,i want” attitude that seems to abound these days, there are lots of things i’d like, but i don’t expect many of them to be handed to me on a plate as and when i want them, it’s usually a case of research, read, work and save.

  14. The majority of comments here make me quite ashamed.
    The Afghan refugees are people who gave their services to the British forces during the war there, acting as interpreters and so on. They were promised protection by the UK government, because their lives, and the lives of their families, were in danger.
    In Ukraine, homes are being bombed and shelled on a daily basis. Men, women and children are being killed.
    For pities’ sake, show a bit of humanity.

    • As we did twice during the nineteenth century, this time in concert with the U.S.A., we invaded Afghanistan – a sovereign nation – because it’s rulers didn’t serve our purpose. As in the 19th century, some locals betrayed their own country. As in the 19th century, the locals drove us out and reclaimed Khorosan. Unlike the 19th century, some of the traitorous locals managed to escape to the U.K. If they betrayed their own country, why should we trust them?
      As to the Ukraine. That’s all about U.S. foreign policy. It’s nothing to do with Britain.

    • The uk exhibits plenty of humanity but the milk of human kindness starts to run dry when this humanity is abused by the many who turn up here illegally knowing they have every chance of staying here ( no matter how they choose to behave) , given the lack of resources and existing demand for housing within the uk there comes a point where thoughts turn to looking after our own before others. Would it not be better to place a family in overcrowded accomodation on the councils list in these new houses and move the refugees into the properties then vacated?

    • Reply to LC- sometimes people are prepared to spend hours doing research on a subject and sometimes they want a rapid reply. Although I’ve spent many hours researching various subjects, this time I would have appreciated a brief and clear reply.

  15. THEN AGAIN IT WAS TONY BLAIR WHO OPENED THE FLOODGATES FOR REFUGEES TO COME OVER TO THE UK-WHO ALSO LIED TO THE COUNTRY ABOUT GOING TO WAR IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ.

  16. What worries me in this article is the wording ” Initial period of 3 years “, in other words the beginning, and ” Once no longer needed by the families “, the families can just say we need to stay here as we have nowhere else to go. Seems it could be a permanent residency.
    Plus it’s expected in the LONG term to go back on the council housing register for re-let for people on the waiting list.
    Yeah right, we’ll see in due course

    • Yep, but tdc won’t turn down free money even when it means they could have bought 6 homes for those on the councils own housing list with the councils 2 million. Amazing how easily it conjured up that amount, you have to wonder what other project is put on hold as a result of the decision. The article sggests the money will be covered out of the councils current tenants rents, so roughly 2 million from 3500 tenants over 3 years, So each tenant will get an average £5.50 a week rent rise. ( if we believe the story) or have their services/ maintenance reduced by the same, have the existing tenants been asked if they are happy with this?

      • Shouldn’t the council be using it’s rent money to improve and maintain the current stock of homes to legal standards? How can it afford to divert that amount of funding away to match the Government amount when living accommodation standards have slipped for tenants? Yes we need more council homes in the thousands since private renting is becoming unaffordable through the decreasing numbers of flats and increase in AirBnb’s but government bribes to house refugees are not the way forward here.

  17. It’s shameful that there is no extra funding for housing our own people who are vulnerable. The waiting list is so long it takes years for single disabled people to be offered a place, even after being made homeless through no fault evictions because the landlord wants to sell or improve the property to fetch a higher rent that is unaffordable to locals. This should be the priority over any current refugee status.
    Yes it’s great a few more homes can be purchased but please get the priorities correct first. The government and their initiatives should be prioritising the home grown folk highest.

  18. Im a 49yr old homeless man from failed relationship im sofa surfer at 2 freinds flats an thew nites in tent i work part time barly enough to get rent in advance or deposit an defo no gurantor like there jus given automacticly an im band b told i woukd wait up to 4 year for a flat. so im over the moon for them our sytstems an counsels are a joke

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