Birmingham City Council has told Whitehall’s UK Borders Agency it will stop accepting asylum-seekers from next summer.
The council, Britain’s largest local authority, announced on 8 October it would not renew its five-year contract with the agency – under which Birmingham supplies 190 properties for asylum-seekers – because it was struggling to house its own residents.
Cllr John Lines, Birmingham’s cabinet member for housing, said: ‘With a long waiting list for homes, we really need all our properties for our own people. We have seen a sharp increase in the number of homeless people in Birmingham, and we must help the citizens of this city first and foremost.’
Birmingham is part of a key UKBA consortium set up to house dispersed asylum-seekers in the West Midlands – other members include Wolverhampton, Dudley and Coventry councils.
However, Birmingham’s officials were keen to stress the authority would continue to provide housing advice and assistance beyond the end of the contract in June 2011.
