Deckchair display on Margate seafront to highlight stories of those taking small boat journey to UK

December 10, 2025 Kathy Bailes Events 22

Seats of Passage display

A deckchair display at Margate Main Sands on Monday (8 December) invited passers-by to pause and reflect on the experiences of people seeking refuge.

The UK is nearing a decade since the first small boats landed on the Kent coast, and the number of people fleeing their countries due to violence or persecution and making the perilous journey by this route has continued to rise.

The artwork, called Seats of Passage, was a collaboration with Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN) and artist facilitator, Maya Bullen.

The four deckchairs were crafted from decommissioned lifejackets for the reimagining of a British seaside symbol to represent the dangerous small boat journeys undertaken by asylum seekers.

A further four deckchairs were loaned for the project by Margate business, Louie On Sea café.

Throughout the day, locals and visitors sat in the chairs and listened through headphones to anonymous voices from the Kent Refugee Action Network sharing their hopes, dreams, and visions for the future.

One KRAN participant said: “A good life is to live with my family, in a place where we feel safe, we feel like we belong and have no worries or fear of what’s going to happen tomorrow. Because if there is peace you will have hopes for tomorrow.”

The Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN) supports unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people across Kent. Through education, mentoring, advocacy, and community-building programmes, KRAN helps young refugees rebuild their lives.

Learn more at kran.org.uk

22 Comments

  1. Slacktivism at it’s best… sling a few deckchairs across the beach… the virtue-signalling DFL’s (dross from London) will be over the moon.

    A migrant participant said: “A good life is to live with my family, in a place where we feel safe, we feel like we belong and have no worries or fear of what’s going to happen tomorrow.

    I also want to feel safe and to belong with no worries or fear but one thing is for sure… it won’t be in a UK full of British-hating migrants.

    Lock up your daughters.

  2. Here’s a thought, small boat crossings only started AFTER we left the EU, why is that? Its because when we were a member of the EU anyone claiming asylum had to do this in the first safe EU country they arrived at! Now we are no longer a member of the EU asylum seekers are being drawn to Britain, because we are no longer a member of the EU. So its all your fault you people who voted to leave the EU, for not reading the samll print, and falling for Johnson’s lies!

    • No, it’s now the easiest way to get into the country, the fines for lorry drivers found to have transported migrants inadvertently ( or otherwise) , greater checks at ferry ports and eurotunnel , have made those routes far harder to exploit.
      So the preferred method is now small boats, which of course has been made even more attractive now that border force and rnli provide a pick up and delivery service.

    • Nonsense. After enhanced security was installed to stop clandestine entries in lorries they had to think of another way to cross. Ports are so much more secure than they used to be with perimeter alarms and monitoring. It’s very very difficult to get on a lorry and cross.

      You do know don’t you, that Britain was a net receiver of migrants under the “Dublin Agreement” that people still moaning about Brexit constantly refer to.

      Brexit has absolutely nothing to do with the waves currently coming across the channel. There are a load of reasons why they are crossing the channel, among these is the misguided thought that they are welcome here.

  9. mr checksfield has nailed it with his comment , a brilliant observation of what was once a seaside holiday town has become – a laughing stock

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