Slowly, but surely, I am hearing about more and more families from Ukraine arriving in Brentwood to live with people here who have offered up their spare rooms and homes to those fleeing the horrors of war.
There has been plenty of news coverage of long waits for the Home Office to process visas, and provide the ‘permission to travel letters’ which are needed to allow safe passage of people from Ukraine, or from temporary accommodation in Poland or Romania, as they travel to Essex.
Essex County is responsibility for coordinating applications made through the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. So far 1788 individuals have applied to come to homes in Essex, from pregnant women, to babies and school age children to mums and grandparents. Each sponsor household has to be carefully checked by the Council before the placement can be agreed and the visas issued.
In the first two months, 30% of those who have applied to come to Essex have arrived, and more visas are being issued each week. Missing documents or travelling with young children can cause delays to individual applications, but the Home office is stepping up to the plate and Ministers are working exceptionally hard to deal with each and every glitch and bump in the system.
I am being contacted daily by constituents asking for information about ‘their’ families, and am passing on as much as I can find out each week. But then more emails arrive – thanking me and my team for our assistance, and attaching pictures of smiling sponsors and guests settling into their new homes and schools after such intense disruption to their lives.
If you’re a sponsor and need further advice and assistance for your guests, Essex County Council has some excellent resources on its website in England and Ukrainian here https://www.essex.gov.uk/news/welcome-to-essex-information-materials-for-guests and here https://www.essex.gov.uk/information-for-sponsors-welcoming-a-ukrainian-person-or-family
I am very proud of what we are doing in Brentwood and Ongar to welcome so many people from Ukraine, and I look forward to meeting some of them when they arrive.
