DIVISIONS emerged yesterday among residents of a village where dozens of migrant workers have been left homeless after the illegally built villa in which they were living was demolished.
For eight months the householders of Gosberton, Lincolnshire, looked on as a Mediterranean hacienda, growing larger by the day, began to dominate their centuries-old high street.
The villa was owned by a gangmaster who used migrant labourers to turn a small house and its outbuildings into accommodation for 50 agricultural workers, most of them from Latvia and Lithuania.
Alan Garrard’s expansive development boasted luxury tiles, marble-style floors, a swimming pool and a water garden. He appeared indifferent to the fact that he did not have planning permission for any of it.
After months of bureacratic wrangling, during which South Holland District Council claims that 29-year-old Mr Garrard, who is half-American and half-Greek, displayed a flagrant contempt for its planning rules, the dispute came to a conclusion on Wednesday when the local authority sent in a team of demolition contractors.
Advertisement
A stand-off ensued, followed by a brief, violent skirmish in which missiles were hurled at the workmen and police by the villa’s occupants.
The explosive situation was defused by the courage of Gosberton’s 66-year-old Methodist minister, the Rev Maurice Perry, who crossed the battle lines and entered the building to negotiate firstly a ceasefire and then an evacuation.
Small groups of residents watched in delight yesterday as the house the gangmaster built fell before their eyes. A far greater challenge, however, is to resolve the immediate fate of the men and women who have been left homeless, jobless and bewildered.
They had paid hundreds of pounds to travel to Britain and — a point overlooked by some of the village’s more vocal residents — they are fully entitled to work in this country.
The local authority has set up a temporary headquarters in the village hall and officials spent yesterday attempting to find new work and accommodation for them.
Advertisement
Mr Perry, in whose church the migrants are sleeping, said: “Some of them are close to despair. They totally trusted all the parties involved, left family, home and country only to be totally disillusioned and demoralised by the reality they have encountered.”
He praised the residents who had come forward to offer their assistance, providing food, clothing, sleeping bags and blankets.
Others among Gosberton’s residents, however, made it clear that they would like to be rid of their unwanted guests immediately.
The council has received complaints from local people demanding action against the Methodist Church for taking in the foreigners and John Hayes, the constituency’s Tory MP, received a verbal battering from an elderly resident on a bicycle during a visit to the village yesterday.
To approving nods from his companions, Norman Moore, 79, told Mr Hayes that Britain was “a soft touch” for immigrants.
Advertisement
Mr Garrard, who ran a similar gangmaster operation in Cornwall before setting his sights on Lincolnshire, was arrested during Wednesday’s disturbances and has been charged with a public order offence and obstructing a planning officer. He was loudly unrepentant yesterday, accusing the council of racism, labelling Gosberton “a filthy slum” and describing its residents as “brainless muppets”.
“This is supposed to be the new Europe, but there’s no democracy in this part of England,” he said. “They’ve made it plain that they don’t want foreigners here.”
Mr Garrard said his workers were paid £4.85 an hour. He developed the villa because he wanted them to have somewhere decent to live. “Now my business is bankrupt and they have been thrown on the street. I’ll see the council in court.”