{"id":753515,"date":"2026-08-29T11:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T11:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753515\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T11:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T11:32:11","slug":"essex-council-worried-about-migrants-to-hire-security-guards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753515\/","title":{"rendered":"Essex council worried about migrants to hire security guards"},"content":{"rendered":"

The council said the initiative, named Operation Vanguard, would act as a “visible presence to reassure residents and deter and prevent any anti-social behaviour”.<\/p>\n

It would run as a three-month trial, but a contract has not yet been awarded.<\/p>\n

The local authority said funding would come from drawing down \u00a3150,000 from the “community innovation and improvement fund”, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Councillors critical of the idea have until Thursday to “call in” the decision, meaning the move would first be debated at a meeting.<\/p>\n

The BBC has tried to reach opposition members from Labour and the Liberal Democrats.<\/p>\n

The government does not record criminal offences by immigration status, but according to analysis by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, external<\/a>, foreign nationals in England and Wales are convicted at roughly the same rate as British nationals.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC this month, Jacqui Braithwaite, landlady of the Finchingfield Lion near Wethersfield, said the asylum seekers seen locally were “respectful”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The migrants a mile-and-a-half away make absolutely no difference to our lives,” she said.<\/p>\n

Andrew Sinclair, the BBC’s East of England political editor, said critics would likely “accuse Reform of stoking community tensions”.<\/p>\n

“The council believes, quite rightly, that some people living near the base and the three main destinations for the Wetherfield buses have concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour,” said Sinclair.<\/p>\n

“But what is not clear is how necessary this is.”<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cOpposition parties have a week to \u2019call in\u2018 this proposal, which will force the council to justify the policy and produce evidence for its decision. This will probably happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for the government, it is unlikely to move from its policy of closing down asylum hotels and putting more people in former military bases. It argues that the stays will be temporary and a detterent to those who want to come illegally to the UK. It also hopes the bases will close in a few years time when it get on top of the aylum problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Parliament returning from the summer break and the party conference season about to get under way, this move ensures that Wethersfield and immigration are talked about a lot in the weeks to come. And that’s probably what Reform wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you have a story suggestion for Essex? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council said the initiative, named Operation Vanguard, would act as a “visible presence to reassure residents and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-753515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}