The number of asylum seekers housed in temporary accommodation in Stockton is now at an all-time high.
The vast majority of asylum seekers have nowhere they can stay when they arrive in Britain, so they are placed in temporary housing while the Government decides whether to allow them to live in the UK as refugees.
At the end of last year there were 682 asylum seekers placed in housing in Stockton - the highest of any three-month period since records began in 2003.
That is up a quarter on the 542 who were housed in the borough in December 2013.
There were more than 26,000 in so-called 'dispersed accommodation' around the country - meaning about one person claiming asylum in 39 is placed in Stockton.
There were 742 placed in Middlesbrough at the end of last year. That was down 5.3 per cent on the 788 recorded in December 2013.
In October, the Gazette reported that the town had the highest proportion of asylum seekers in England - becoming the only place in the country to breach national guidelines.
The Government says that no local authority area should need to accommodate more than one asylum seeker per 200 of population.
But a Middlesbrough Council report revealed almost 1,000 asylum seekers are currently being housed in the town - almost one-and-a-half times the Government limit.
There were just two in Redcar and Cleveland at the end of December 2014. There were five at the end of December 2013.
Middlesbrough and Stockton house some of the highest numbers of people waiting to hear whether they will be granted refugee status in the UK.
The Home Office's guidelines state that asylum seekers should be placed outside London and the South East 'as a general rule' because of the housing shortage in and around the capital.
The two regions combined had 4.2 per cent of the UK asylum seekers in temporary accommodation at the end of December.
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