In early June, reports in the Guardian suggested that the Government is considering plans to use a barge to accommodate people seeking asylum at Teesport.
In response, people across Teesside, including local refugee organisations, councillors and residents, have signed a joint public letter to PD Ports, the owner of Teesport, calling on them to take no part in any plans to create a floating prison on the Tees. The full text of the letter is below.
Dear Mr Calje and Mr Hopkinson,
We are writing following recent reports that the Home Office is considering using a barge to accommodate people seeking asylum at Teesport. We urge PD Ports not to take any part in plans to create a floating prison on the Tees, and join the Leader of Redcar and Cleveland Council and local MPs in opposing this proposal.
It is imperative that no deal is done to place people seeking asylum in any facility at Teesport. People seeking asylum should be able to live as members of our communities while they wait for a decision on their asylum claim, not warehoused in barges or ships.
Placing hundreds or thousands of people in a vessel at Teesport would cause significant harm to people fleeing war and persecution. Many people may have been forced to make traumatic journeys over sea, and using ships or barges as accommodation risks retraumatising vulnerable people. The use of similar facilities in other countries have resulted in human rights violations and humanitarian crises, with a typhoid outbreak and reports of mistreatment and deaths on ships in the Netherlands.
It is likely that the security measures required by Teesport’s status as a Freeport would severely limit people’s ability to leave the site, meaning people would effectively be detained. Current Government plans to vastly increase the detention of people seeking asylum also mean that it is possible that any vessel used for accommodation in the short-term could formally become a detention facility, in contravention of the UK’s international obligations.
The significant harm caused by segregating people seeking asylum from the community has been well evidenced in reports from current institutional asylum accommodation, and by a wealth of research on detention-like conditions. Asylum accommodation has long been characterised by a lack of local consultation and resourcing, as well as inadequate healthcare and screening for vulnerabilities. People seeking asylum are effectively banned from working, and are kept in limbo for months or even years on minimal levels of asylum support. All too often, people are only able to access the support and services they need via extremely stretched voluntary organisations.
Across Teesside, voluntary services are already stretched to capacity largely thanks to the Government’s extensive mismanagement of the asylum system. It would be impossible to step up the support and services that a barge at Teesport would require. In Birkenhead, Peel Ports have recently refused to further consider similar plans for a barge as they could “not see any conceivable scenario” in which local services would be “able to provide the necessary support”. We urge you to follow suit.
We understand that PD Ports lists respect, consideration and trust among your key values, and we ask that you stand by those principles. Portland Port and Bibby Marine have undermined their stated values by agreeing to allow the Bibby Stockholm to be used to warehouse people seeking refuge in Dorset. We urge you not to make the same mistake, and we call on PD Ports to refuse to enter into any similar agreements at Teesport.
