Buses to return migrants

Council chiefs are to charter buses to transport homeless eastern Europeans back to their native countries.

Westminster council is to pay to send the destitute migrants home after thousands entered Britain when their countries joined the European Union, only to face life on the streets.

Many are ending up downandout a few hundred yards from Buckingham Palace, with homelessness charities warning of a crisis in the rough sleepers population.

Now Westminster council says hiring a coach to Poland, the country from which most migrants travelled, might be the best way of providing help.

Council leader Simon Milton said: "A one-way ticket back to Poland would be ?90, which is a lot cheaper than trying to sustain them in London. This is what we do when we get people turning up at Victoria. The coach station and rail station are magnets for people from the rest of the UK. Often the best thing to do is buy them a train ticket back home. It's an extension of that principle."

But Mr Milton said no one would be forced to leave the capital. "The best thing is to get much better publicity to explain to people that the streets of London are not paved with gold, and you can end up in a very sad situation if you don't have somewhere to stay and a job to go to," he said.

The diff iculties facing migrant workers from the enlarged EU is revealed in Housing Today magazine. A number of migrants appear to have been duped by conmen in their home countries who claim to have set them up with jobs and accommodation in London.

Most migrants are male skilled and semi-skilled workers aged 25 to 50, and stand out amid the typical street population of people with serious drug and alcohol problems.

Their presence has caused resentment, with many of London's homeless believing they are denying them access to day centres and soup kitchens. The authorities fear this could escalate into violence.

A meeting involving the council, the Met Police and the Home Office has been set up, with the hope that the Polish government will discourage others from travelling.

A survey of the West End last month by homelessness charity Thames Reach Bondway found 21 eastern Europeans sleeping rough, mainly in Buckingham Palace Road. There were 15 Poles, four Latvians and two Ukranians. In addition, 17 migrants were seen boarding a coach to elsewhere in the UK.

The charity said this understated the problem as many had already dispersed throughout the city or across the country.

Jeremy Swain, chief executive of Thames Reach Bondway, noticed a "dramatic" rise in the street population one day after Eastern Europeans were allowed free entry to the UK.

Living in poverty at home, they had been attracted by far higher London wages. But many ran into difficulties and were unable to claim benefits.

Mr Swain said: "Many people find work and move on but others have been sleeping on the streets for weeks. Our concern is that this group is getting involved in drinking schools and becoming very run-down."