Lithuanian shanty town... in Peterborough

[Tony]

A small group of Lithuanians have set up camp in Peterborough. BBC video report.

 

The BBC say:

Up to 20 eastern European migrant workers have been living in a shanty town-like area in Peterborough. A local religious group, Christian United People, filmed Lithuanians living in tents and makeshift shelters in woodland by Bourges Boulevard.

 

One resident, Igor, an electrician, said he became homeless after moving to Cambridgeshire for work from London.

 

Peterborough City Council said as the group was not working its members were not eligible for council assistance. A city council spokesman said homelessness officers had spoken to the group on several occasions and because its members only worked sporadically they could not receive council aid.

 

Antony Slack, of Christian United People, told the BBC that he had filmed the shelters to raise awareness of both what was happening to those within the UK and those planning on coming.

 

Mr Slack said he had made 100 DVDs and planned to circultae them to show the reality of life for immigrants. Peterborough City Council said the group are not eligible for aid.

 

He told the BBC: "Sadly there is a lot of misconception as to what is actually happening with EU people. They think that they can come here and get free housing and that's not the case. They have to work in this country and pay tax for two years before they can get onto the housing lists. They are being sold a dream in their own country. I think they very much need to understand we have issues in this country as well. They need to make proper plans of action before they attempt to come here and find employment."

[Eric_Collins]

Yep proves that we don't have enough homes now for British Born residents never mind anyone wanting to stay.

 

Also take a trip around London and see how many British Kids/Teen and the Harden Homeless there is , I don't see them in the news

[JoeP]

I assume no one in the area complained when these guys came in and did the low pay jobs that the local farmers / industries wanted doing but wouldn't pay the going rate for.

 

If you want to go back to a piecework economy, then be prepared for this sort of thing.

 

Just another of those hidden social and economic costs that our Government and some of our businesses neglect to mention....

[Mathom]

Did any of you see "The Poles Are Coming" last night on BBC2. That was about Peterborough. Very interesting. And worrying.

 

It wasn't just single men coming here and living in terrible conditions but whole families; there was a family with two young children living in one nasty room in a shared house, all so the parents could take advantage of what to them are high wages. But to us are poverty wages that we cannot live on.

 

It's been going on where I grew up for some time now. My mother tells me there are caravans at the back of some of the farms which house up to a dozen men, all employed picking our veg so the supermarkets can make a bigger profit - and local youngsters are on the dole because they cannot afford to work.

[pk014b7161]

Yep proves that we don't have enough homes now for British Born residents never mind anyone wanting to stay.

 

Also take a trip around London and see how many British Kids/Teen and the Harden Homeless there is , I don't see them in the news

if your born here you dont count

[Fareast]

I suppose that after living under Soviet occupation for 50 years [except for a short period when they were 'liberated' by the Nazis] and this followed by a low standard of living and economic confusion, Britain must seem paradise compared to Lithuania.

 

That sums up the problem. If you allow laissez-faire immigration and allow a lot of illegal immigration too, you will tend to attract people who are simply desperate. Conversely, if you saddle the host country with thousands of regulations to try to cope with a lot of ensuing social problems, then the people who are used to better things will emigrate.

 

This, indeed, is what is happening now. Put simply, we are losing doctors and gaining fruit-pickers.

[Mathom]

There's something desperately wrong when other countries are being stripped of vital workers of their own such as nurses and skilled trades, who come here to take up lucrative (for them) jobs. Those countries then have fewer people to do the work (which must push up their own costs and wages!) and British people cannot get jobs! There are unemployed midwives, nurses and doctors who cannot get jobs despite their training, and youngsters leaving school who cannot get work in trades now.

[purdyamos]

There's something desperately wrong when other countries are being stripped of vital workers of their own such as nurses and skilled trades, who come here to take up lucrative (for them) jobs. Those countries then have fewer people to do the work (which must push up their own costs and wages!) and British people cannot get jobs! There are unemployed midwives, nurses and doctors who cannot get jobs despite their training, and youngsters leaving school who cannot get work in trades now.

 

The answer that usually gets trotted out is that the East European migrants are only doing jobs that locals are too lazy to do. But as you say it impacts on other types of work too. The Polish plumber has become legendary, but their rates don't have to cover the complete cost of being settled here and home-grown tradesmen are in difficulty. I know a plasterer who is having enormous difficulty getting work because everyone wants the cheap East Europeans. He does want to work and he's not greedy, he just wants to earn a living.

 

Then in Poland there was a desperate shortage of workers so there was a drive to ship in workers from Belarus (I think) to plug the gaps. So where does that leave Belarus? There seems to be a sort of economic food chain, and it's not enough to just blame workshy minimum wage slaves. Having said that the Poles are starting to go back now, but other poor nations will migrate in their turn.

 

There is a big problem also with the widespread overcrowding and cramming foreign workers into properties, or caravans (as you say) and also the sheds and shacks that landlords are building in their gardens to cram even more in. A couple of weeks ago a fire chief warned that this makeshift overcrowding was a disaster waiting to happen, and the house fire that killed so many in Germany the other week was almost inevitably going to happen here one day because those conditions are so common now.

[Mathom]

The answer that usually gets trotted out is that the East European migrants are only doing jobs that locals are too lazy to do. But as you say it impacts on other types of work too. The Polish plumber has become legendary, but their rates don't have to cover the complete cost of being settled here and home-grown tradesmen are in difficulty. I know a plasterer who is having enormous difficulty getting work because everyone wants the cheap East Europeans. He does want to work and he's not greedy, he just wants to earn a living.

 

Then in Poland there was a desperate shortage of workers so there was a drive to ship in workers from Belarus (I think) to plug the gaps. So where does that leave Belarus? There seems to be a sort of economic food chain, and it's not enough to just blame workshy minimum wage slaves. Having said that the Poles are starting to go back now, but other poor nations will migrate in their turn.

 

There is a big problem also with the widespread overcrowding and cramming foreign workers into properties, or caravans (as you say) and also the sheds and shacks that landlords are building in their gardens to cram even more in. A couple of weeks ago a fire chief warned that this makeshift overcrowding was a disaster waiting to happen, and the house fire that killed so many in Germany the other week was almost inevitably going to happen here one day because those conditions are so common now.

 

Spot on. People here wonder why few British people fill the lower paid jobs and are on the dole instead. But if you take an average rural village like where my parents live, a small 2 bed house will cost you around £200k and a council house is like gold-dust as they've all been sold (in fact that 2 bed house for £200k might be an ex-council house). Private rents are unaffordable on low wages. So it would be madness to take up the same agricultural jobs that your father and grandfather would have done.

 

So...in come the foreign workers who can stand to live temporarily in bad conditions in an old caravan or shed, knowing their nice flat in Krakow is waiting for them. Meanwhile a new generation of rural British youngsters grows up on benefits.

 

British people are being sold short and it makes me quite sick because this just plays into the hands of the BNP. Of course other people are suffering because of this - the migrant workers are simply making sound economic decisions as much as the people who cannot afford to work are. It's not the fault of either of these groups but you can bet your life they'll end up set against each other.

[StarSparkle]

Spot on. People here wonder why few British people fill the lower paid jobs and are on the dole instead. But if you take an average rural village like where my parents live, a small 2 bed house will cost you around £200k and a council house is like gold-dust as they've all been sold (in fact that 2 bed house for £200k might be an ex-council house). Private rents are unaffordable on low wages. So it would be madness to take up the same agricultural jobs that your father and grandfather would have done.

 

So...in come the foreign workers who can stand to live temporarily in bad conditions in an old caravan or shed, knowing their nice flat in Krakow is waiting for them. Meanwhile a new generation of rural British youngsters grows up on benefits.

 

British people are being sold short and it makes me quite sick because this just plays into the hands of the BNP. Of course other people are suffering because of this - the migrant workers are simply making sound economic decisions as much as the people who cannot afford to work are. It's not the fault of either of these groups but you can bet your life they'll end up set against each other.

 

It makes me think of how things USED to be for students. Youngsters at university would live for 3 / 4 years in crappy accommodation - possibly lodgings in the same house as the landlord.

 

They would probably be living from hand to mouth on a basic student grant.

 

But they knew that after getting their degree they would be saying goodbye to that lifestyle, probably for life, as they moved into decently-paid jobs.

 

It seems to me that all the Poles and other EU migrants are doing - it's easy to live a pretty crummy life-style in your early twenties, especially if you KNOW it's only going to be temporary, and you're working towards creating a better life for yourself later on. That's no hardship.

 

What IS a hardship is having to live on similar lines to that, but without a job, or any prospects of ever getting one. You couldn't carry on living in a shared caravan for most of your life, but when one lot of Poles gets fed up with it, another lot arrives to replace them. To compete, a Brit would have to expect to live like that for the foreseeable future.

 

How on earth is a young British lad supposed to compete with this? If he did the same, he'd be living in that caravan for the rest of his life, as there is no way on this earth he'd ever earn enough doing that to afford even a crappy flat in this country.

 

What's so wrong about all this, is that there isn't a level playing field here. Brits simply cannot survive on the wages these EU migrants can manage on. And the employers will naturally try to get away with paying their 'employees' as little as they can.

 

How can young people in Britain today be expected to earn enough money to raise a family? British youngsters are effectively being told they're surplus to requirements, and are expected to live in poverty on benefits for the rest of their lives.

 

It's all so very wrong. I'm tempted to say this country - and the world beyond it - needs a bloody good shake-up.

 

StarSparkle