Additional housing pressures are feared in London and the South East as thousands of asylum seekers refuse to be dispersed elsewhere in England.
Liverpool has refused to take any more asylum seekers because it says the Home Office owes it £174,000. The city council says it lost another £78,000 in accommodation that it set aside on the basis of government figures but which was not filled.
Now the Home Office has been forced to freeze plans to disperse asylum seekers to council accommodation around the country because thousands of them cannot be traced. Councils in the North and West stand to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds as a result of the decision.
Financial Times 21/09/00 page 4
The Daily Telegraph 21/09/00 page 15
The Guardian 21/09/00 page 5
The Times 21/09/00 page 5
