Residents in Gronant found that 13 of the 15 homes at the former Gronant Institute had been earmarked for asylum accommodation. Glyn Banks, the Llanasa and Trelawnyd councillor, later said he had checked with Flintshire County Council's Liaison Officer and the plans were going ahead.
Banks said, "I'm 100% behind the residents in Gronant in trying to stop this happening," after the scale of the proposal became public. The site, now a 15-home development, was being lined up through Clear Springs for people seeking asylum in the UK, where they wait for a decision on their claim and cannot work during that time.
Flintshire Council liaison
Earlier this week, residents contacted Banks after discovering that the former Gronant Institute was under consideration to be leased to Clear Springs Ready Homes. Banks said neither he nor Gina Madison had been consulted on the proposal or had any prior knowledge, before he raised the issue publicly in a Facebook post.
He said, "The community would have welcomed one or two families, they understand that people need help and support. Recently some families were given refuge in Mostyn and there were no issues because it was proportional." He also said, "But 13 out of 15 homes on the site is too many. Nearby residents have put up with a lot during the redevelopment of the Gronant Institute site. Now the homes are built they come asking whether their grown-up children could rent them and are told no?"
Jo Gillmore on local services
Jo Gillmore, the community councillor, said the scale of the plan raised fears about concentrating "a large group of people – who may change in a short space of time – in a significant area of a small village." She said the village already had stretched services, including a doctor's surgery trying to reduce the number of patients it serves because it has too many.
Gillmore also said, "But asylum seekers are going to need local amenities too aren't they. If this was a big city or urban area it would perhaps make more sense." She added that people placed in asylum accommodation would have no work rights while they waited for decisions, saying, "While they're waiting for their claims to be decided they can't work so they have nothing to do, which means they are left to just hang around all day. But where can they hang around in Gronant? There's nowhere to go."
Gronant Institute homes
The dispute now turns on why 13 homes at the Gronant Institute were selected rather than a smaller number. The residents' objection is not to the presence of asylum accommodation itself, but to placing most of a new 15-home development into that use in a small village where local amenities are already under strain.
Banks said the plans involved too much secrecy and, "There's no consultation and too much secrecy. That's why people lose faith in the system." For residents in Gronant, the immediate issue is no longer whether the development exists, but how many of its homes will be set aside and why the village was not brought into the process before the plan surfaced.
