Fed-up locals say their village has become a ‘hellhole’ and a ‘dumping ground’ for refugees for councils in London.
Residents in the former mining village of Eldon Lane in County Durham have compared their community to a ‘ghost town’ with eerie streets full of vandalised homes covered in boarded-up windows.
In the past, bus drivers refused to stop in the village due to the high anti-social conduct and criminality.
A YouTuber visiting the area harshly branded it a ‘Victorian slum’.
It coincides with the growing number of refugees in County Durham’s towns and villages who are allegedly being relocated by southern authorities to the North East of England.
Cheap housing in deprived towns and villages—where properties are known to sell for just £5,000—make them prime locations for councils to place migrants in the hands of private landlords.
One local told MailOnline: ‘They started placing refugees and Londoners here all of a sudden; maybe two years ago they started to arrive; it became a dumping ground.
‘But we’ve got nowt here, so they’re in the same boat as us.’
MPs have said it is ‘abhorrent’ that deprived communities in the North have been singled out to rehouse asylum seekers and vulnerable families by authorities in London and the south.
Due to a lack of social housing in the city, London Borough councils reportedly transferred up to two vulnerable households per month into private landlord-owned properties last year, as revealed by a Northern Echo investigation.
Numerous sources from around the area have attested to the fact that a sizable number of refugees are also being brought to County Durham.
The North East of England is battling a housing crisis where 75,000 families are on waiting lists for social housing and over 300 children are homeless in County Durham alone.
Eldon Lane is a community with notable socioeconomic challenges since 39% of families reside in impoverished conditions.
Every street has visible evidence of deterioration, with rows of homes having windows that are either boarded up or damaged by stones.
Although the town has long been without basic services, the locals have embraced the migrants nonetheless.
The village GP practice closed down two years ago and the nearest A&E department is in Darlington, a 22-mile roundtrip away.
There is no dentist, chemist, school or bank, and the last of its pubs closed down years ago.
One man praised the refugees and immigrants moving to the village and said Eldon Lane had long been ‘forgotten’ by local and national administrations.
He said, ‘They’re nice, friendly people who look after their houses and they don’t take drugs and smash the place up, so good luck to them.
‘They look after their houses and a lot of them work to pay their way.
‘Eldon Lane has long been forgotten and left behind; we’re used to it but the place has become an absolute hellhole.’
The persistent lack of funding has prompted people to get together and build a playground for their children. Onto the grassed space behind the high street are swings, slides, and trampolines, all designed for common use.
The grass is tended by locals to give their kids a place to play, with few of the small housing authority homes having external space for a garden.
Eldon Lane’s DIY playground is set against a backdrop of two rows of long-abandoned, boarded-up houses.
Some claim that the crime has gotten so bad that it is now uncontrollable.
Casting an eye up the deserted main road, Spencer Street, one local recalled distant, better days.
He said, ‘My dad worked at the pit and it was a profitable one; there was coal piled as high as the houses and the high street was bouncing.
‘There were dozens of shops and pubs and the place was alive. When you walk through it now, it makes you shudder, it’s like a ghost town, you barely see a soul who’s ventured out because what is there to venture out for?’
While local Bethany Wainwright, 25, said, ‘It’s rough, you can’t get around that; it’s obvious just by looking round at the number of empty and vandalised houses.
‘The bus even had to stop coming through here at night because it was getting pelted with stones and it was dangerous for the driver and the passengers.
‘There is a lot of vandalism and stone-throwing and fires being started but there is nothing at all for the kids to do; there’s nothing left here.
‘The great thing about Eldon Lane is that it’s a community and people are good to each other; they look out for one another.’
Carer Joanne Rowlands, 25, said, ‘I was brought up in Eldon Lane and I know it has a bad reputation but I’m used to that.
‘There are problems with crime here; houses getting damaged and kids were even setting light to the postboxes, which meant people’s mail was being destroyed.
‘It’s not even the local kids that do a lot of it; they come in from surrounding areas to cause damage here because they know they can get away with it.’
Christine Steward, 75, originally from Southampton, arrived in Easington Lane with her husband, a County Durham native, in the late 70s and fell in love with the village.
She said, ‘The place has a good heart and I love it here and was very disappointed to read it had been called a slum.
‘It could be so much better with a bit of investment. We have housing associations who are content to leave rows of houses boarded up instead of repairing them and finding tenants.
‘It was a thriving place once and it could be again if the local authority gave it a bit of care and attention.
‘Lately, we’ve been getting quite a few refugees and they’re just left here on some occasions with absolutely nothing.
‘When that happens, the locals rally round and help them because that’s the kind of community this is.
‘One man didn’t even have a mattress to sleep on so we found him a bed. We’ve also helped find clothes for the children of refugees to see them through the winter.
‘It must be terrible to be dumped in a strange place with nothing but the clothes on your back, so we help them; they’re welcome here and we’ll look after them.’
Oghenekome Ivbijaro, 39, arrived three years ago in Eldon Lane from Nigeria with her husband and three children.
She said, ‘When we first arrived, we had little, and the local church found us everything that we needed. We have come to like it here and 90 percent of the people are friendly and helpful.
‘I found a job in a care home and we feel we’ve become part of the community. It helps us to have other Nigerians and some Zimbabweans here as well; there is a small African community here now.’
But this isn’t about immigrants; this is about how a council can let this happen to their community. It’s disgraceful.
The North is a good place to put everybody, it seems, but why the North? Why not somewhere else to house people who need housing? It’s a form of social cleansing by the elimination of members of society who are considered undesirable, including, but not limited to, the homeless, criminals, street children, the elderly, the poor, the weak, the sick, the needy, and the disabled.
Single-family houses are no longer the solution to the severe housing problem we’re now experiencing. Eventually, the government will construct denser complexes due to a lack of available land.
A stroll around your community will reveal three or more empty houses, and these stack-and-pack projects are becoming increasingly common, particularly in urban areas. From the outside, they appear beautiful, but inside, they resemble rabbit hutches. However, housing is housing in whatever form, right?
Vacant homes, whether from the private sector or council, are almost certainly because older residents have moved or passed away and left it to their children who haven’t figured out what to do with it. As for councils who refuse to put tenants in their properties, they should be fined the rental for each week it has been empty, and for those homes that are now in disrepair, councils should be charged triple that amount.
Currently, it appears that building what is known as stack-and-pack housing is the solution. Greetings from our concrete jungle!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 