Residents and councillors in the Surrey village of Laleham have reacted with fury after asylum seekers were quietly placed in a £500,000 property situated just 200 yards from a local primary school, with local authorities claiming they received no prior warning before the migrants arrived.
The row has been dramatically intensified by the subsequent arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker, believed to be in his early 20s, who was detained outside the house on suspicion of harassment after allegedly returning to the school grounds despite being told by police to stay away. The man had reportedly been seen loitering near the school during morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up times on multiple occasions, causing significant alarm among parents. He has since been transferred to a secure facility under the Mental Health Act.
The incident brought the issue to Parliament, where Conservative MP for Spelthorne Lincoln Jopp raised it during Prime Minister’s Questions, demanding to know who had carried out the risk assessment that led to the placement. “Who screwed up, and who can I hold accountable?” he asked. Sir Keir Starmer said the matter was subject to a live police investigation and assured the House that the Asylum Minister was examining the case closely, adding that local authorities are consulted before accommodation is procured and retain the right to object.
That assurance sits awkwardly alongside the position of Spelthorne Borough Council, which told residents the migrants had been moved in “without the normal risk assessment” and has written to the Home Office demanding an explanation and a guarantee the situation will not be repeated. The Home Office, however, maintained that the council had been consulted before the property was secured.
Jopp also wrote to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood calling for an urgent investigation and urging that no future placements be made near schools. One anonymous parent told The Sun: “The first duty of a government is to keep people safe, but we don’t feel this was a safe thing to do.”
The placement is part of Labour’s broader push to end the use of hotels for housing asylum seekers — a practice that Home Office minister Alex Norris has acknowledged had “spiralled out of control.” Critics have long referred to the policy of dispersing migrants into residential communities as “Operation Scatter.” Under current planning regulations, no permission is required to convert a property into a house in multiple occupation for up to six residents, raising concerns that thousands of homes could be repurposed without adequate local scrutiny as the Government races to phase out hotel use by 2029.
Laleham is a small village of around 2,500 people located approximately five miles from Heathrow Airport. A council spokesman said protecting children remained the local authority’s “highest priority.”
