Fenland District Council (FDC) has agreed to accept almost £900,000 of government funding towards housing refugees. 

The money, totalling £873,932 from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) will be used to buy nine properties to house refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan in Fenland in the short-term. 

FDC notes that local people may be angry that it can’t be spent elsewhere. 

The houses, which FDC say will be located outside the PE13 and PE14 postcode areas such as March and Whittlesey, can then be used for housing homeless people in the long term. 

Cllr Steve Tierney said at an FDC cabinet meeting this week that while he supports accepting the money, it’s “diverse and unwise” of DLUHC to stipulate that the houses must support refugees first. 

“There are plenty of local people desperately looking for housing who will look at this and be angry about it,” he said. 

Cllr Dee Laws agreed, adding: “My heart goes out to local residents, and I think it will be very difficult for them to comprehend this.” 

Seven of the houses are likely to have two or three bedrooms, while DLUHC says one must have four. 

FDC will also have to match the department’s funding in order to buy the houses, with this additional money coming from council reserves, Section 106 funds, or a loan from the government’s Public Works Loan Board (PWLB). 

How this will be chosen will be decided by FDC officers and investment board members at a later date. 

FDC leader Cllr Chris Boden said at the meeting that it’s in FDC’s financial interest to accept the DLUHC grant but added that the government is “putting a sticking plaster on a much more serious wound”. 

Cllr Steve Count agreed that “what we actually need is more housing”, as the grant won’t go towards building new properties – just purchasing them. 

Even Cllr Samantha Hoy, who presented the proposal to accept the money to the cabinet, said it’s a “really difficult one”. 

She said: “Why would we turn government money down? 

“But I also really agree with a lot that’s been said, especially when you’ve got people who came here legally under EU treaty rights and now can’t get any public funding and are sleeping in self-made shacks in town because they haven’t got resource to public funds. 

“Then we’re spending public money buying houses for additional people to come and be housed there, then not least our own population.” 

Cllr Hoy added: “We all know how massive the housing list is and how desperate people are so it is a really difficult one.” 

Cllr Boden said that these concerns are “completely valid” but added it’s appropriate to help Afghan refugees because of the UK’s history of involvement in the country, while we all “reach out with our hearts” to those displaced by the conflict in Ukraine. 

The money is part of the £500m Local Authority Housing Fund announced by the DLUHC last month (January). 

The department says on their website that while most of this will go towards Ukrainian refugees, it will also “provide homes for up to 500 Afghan families currently living in bridging hotels at a significant cost to taxpayers.” 

FDC plans to purchase the nine homes by November.