The new face of racial tension: As ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett warns of clashes between Roma and locals in Sheffield, the bitter irony is that the previous generation of immigrants are angriest

Page Hall in Sheffield is increasingly a centre of tension over immigration

Britons, Pakistanis, Yemenis and others object to Eastern European arrivals

Earlier this month fight between Yemeni and Roma erupted into mass brawl

Mr Blunkett has called for tough police action to control the tensions



A photo of a smiling David Blunkett, guide dog by his side, hangs on the office wall of the community centre at Page Hall, a grid of terraced streets five miles from the centre of Sheffield.



It shows the former Labour Home Secretary, who is one of the city’s MPs, meeting local people during a visit last summer.



In recent years, the area was home to a social and ethnic mix of indigenous Britons, Pakistanis, Yemenis and Somalis who lived happily together.

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Tension in the air: Roma children in the streets of Page Hall in Sheffield as police step up patrols

They shopped in the same places, their children went to the same schools and played on the narrow pavements outside the back-to-back houses.



However, those days are, sadly, a vanishing memory. In Page Hall tensions are rising between the myriad different communities who speak different languages and come from different cultures - while Mr Blunkett himself has become the focus of controversy.

This tiny network of streets, just a quarter of a mile square, is on the frontline of a multicultural battle after skirmishes between the locals and many hundreds of newly arrived Roma from a poverty-stricken part of Slovakia threatened last week to spill over into full-blown riots.



A clash between two youths - a Yemeni and a Roma - escalated into a mass street brawl and provoked a flurry of media headlines. It led a worried Mr Blunkett to urge police in the area to get tough.



‘What is required is a clear, visible police presence in the evening,’ he said, ‘so there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind about the determination to clamp down on any kind of unacceptable behaviour. Those who perpetrate unacceptable behaviour need to understand the police mean business.’



This isn’t the first time Mr Blunkett has intervened. Last November, he urged Roma migrants to change their ways after countless complaints about rowdy night-time parties, litter, men urinating in the street, excessive drinking and teenage children running wild.

‘We have got to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming Roma community,’ he said in a controversial statement on the growing tensions, ‘because there’s going to be an explosion otherwise.

Patrols: The influx of immigrants has depressed house prices, according to some residents

'We have got to be tough and robust in saying to people: “You are not living in a downtrodden village or woodland” - because many of them don’t live in areas where there are toilets or refuse facilities.’



Page Hall’s problems have grown since a very large number of East Europeans moved into the area.



At first it was a trickle, but according to figures given to me by the local community centre, more than 900 Roma Slovak families now call it home.



The influx of so many extra adults - and thousands of their children - means public services are struggling to cope and are ‘at breaking point’, according to locals.

Feelings are running high among people of all backgrounds - but what is striking is that some of the most outspoken are themselves immigrants or children of immigrants who came to Britain in earlier times.

Mohammed Rashid, a 67-year-old market trader and landlord who settled in Page Hall from Pakistan half a century ago, expressed views that are typical.

He said: ‘This is our area and we feel we are being pushed out by these new Roma people. There will be a riot here very soon. I fear that this place might blow up like an inferno. I want back the England I loved.’



As much as they might want to leave, people such as Mr Rashid claim it is almost impossible to move out of the area because the value of their houses has plummeted by an average of £20,000.



He told me ‘ordinary people’ don’t want to live in Page Hall any more. ‘Every week, more Roma from Slovakia arrive and they learn nothing about our British ways or how to behave decently.’



His neighbour, Shagufta Parveen, a Yorkshire-born mother of four who has lived in Page Hall since she was a child, added: ‘I get frightened even walking down to the shops. I won’t let my teenage son out on his own.



Outspoken: Former Home Secretary David Blunkett, MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, has called for tough policing of the area

‘The Roma hang around the streets in big groups all day. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make them go away.’



Given the strength of feeling that this influx has generated, it would be understandable if there was a measure of exaggeration about the newcomers’ behaviour - and it is, of course, impossible to verify all the stories told of the Roma in Page Hall.



But one thing is certain: many residents believe them to be true.



When I visited the estate last year after Mr Blunkett first brought the problems to national attention, residents told me of Roma teenage girls working as prostitutes (charging £3 for a one-minute sex act), and of Slovaks spending the day drinking in the street or squandering their welfare money in betting shops.



At Neighbourhood Watch meetings attended by community police, locals have reported alarming tales of gangs of youths stealing food from supermarket delivery vans, clothes off washing lines, children’s toys from gardens and aggressively threatening passers-by.



Some of the stories, of course, might simply have been hearsay, but there is no doubt that locals are deeply hostile to the Roma.



And even though the police are patrolling here night and day, following Mr Blunkett’s demand that they strengthen their presence and stamp out anti-social behaviour, long-time residents want even tougher action.

This week, on my return visit to Page Hall, I saw Roma again gathering on the streets, while passers-by expressed festering resentment. Depressingly, such attitudes have hardened.



The few indigenous English who still live in the area have sided with other ethnic groups, such as people of Pakistani origin whose families have been here for generations.



For their part, the Roma insist they have done nothing wrong and that they are victims of racism because they are ‘gipsies’ - a term the Roma are proud to use.



One 28-year-old Roma man whom I met in Popple Street, a road of 140 houses in the heart of Page Hall where three-quarters of the homes are now occupied by Slovak families, complained bitterly about the bias against them.



‘It is us who are frightened by the hatred against us. Coming to this country, we thought that England would treat us with respect,’ he said. ‘Instead, the locals despise us. What’s more, we are stopped by the police all the time.



Clash: The tension spilled out onto the streets earlier this month when a Yemeni and a Roma started fighting

‘The Pakistanis and Arab people make complaints about us because we are Christians who enjoy a drink and parties. They do not approve of alcohol. We are two different cultures who are being asked to live alongside each other.’



The man, who does part-time work in a factory, said he daren’t give me his name in case his family suffered reprisals for his views.



People such as him are supported by Gulnaz Hussain, who runs the community centre where that photo of Mr Blunkett was taken, and who tries to help the Roma integrate with the other immigrants communities here.

‘We are running English-language classes so they will feel at home,’ she told me.



She said her staff do their best to warn incomers that they must try to fit in and behave appropriately - telling them it is unacceptable to drop litter, for instance, or for their young children to be out on their own after 9pm.



She also said, however, that it was time Mr Blunkett stopped criticising the Roma. ‘It only makes the divisions between the different communities worse,’ she explained.



Regardless of who is to blame for the rising tension, it is a sorry story that encapsulates what is happening in so many urban areas across the country, as people are forced to adapt to a sudden influx of immigrants who often speak no English, can’t get work, live in dreadful conditions and put immense strain on already hard-pressed schools and NHS services.



For the people of Page Hall, the problems seem very real.



Conflict: Mr Blunkett intensified his calls for action to be taken after the incident earlier this month

After the street brawl last week, shopkeepers claimed that gangs of youths had brandished knives as they fronted up to each other and vandalised baskets and bread trays outside their stores.

One teenager’s arm was broken, and a boy of 16, two men of 27 and 28, and a youth of 17 have been questioned by the police.



Barrie Rees, 65, a retired steelworker said: ‘The street brawl turned Page Hall into a battlefield and the police had to bring in reinforcements.

'At the height of the violence, they had a helicopter hovering above the estate. I am sure the police were expecting a riot, just like Mr Blunkett has predicted.’



Paul Downend, a 46-year-old shop manager whose family have been here for five generations, added: ‘We are living in what is becoming a ghetto. The locals are terrified of what will happen next.



The schools are jam-packed, the rented houses are overflowing with tens of people inside, and you can’t get an appointment at the doctor’s for days.’



Sheffield City Council and the NHS warned in recent reports that some of the Roma children are so ill-nourished their hair is falling out. Overcrowding has provoked infant cases of threadworm and hepatitis, while tuberculosis and even rickets have been discovered at local hospitals for the first time in years.



There is no doubt that local indigenous families and immigrants who came to Britain a long time ago - and who, they point out, have paid their taxes - feel aggrieved.



Talk to them and they will tell you that, thanks to our open-borders policy, countless East Europeans can come here and immediately become entitled to welfare hand-outs of up to £2,000 a month and free state services.

In Page Hall, I saw dozens of cars with Slovakian numberplates belonging to Roma who have driven across Europe to join relatives or friends in Sheffield.



Everyone has a horror story - again difficult to prove - about the new incomers. Mohammed Akra, a 65-year-old who runs the Eastern Eye takeaway, talked to me of East Europeans abusing the child benefit system and having babies to boost their state hand-outs.

He accused them of ‘hanging around all day in the betting shop or drinking outside the off-licence’.



‘It makes locals, who pay their taxes and have never been on the dole, very angry,’ he said, adding that Page Hall has become lawless and that if the police tell the Roma to move on, they don’t do so.



‘The officers are afraid to crack down because of political correctness. We feel they give the Roma an easy time, however badly they behave.’

With such criticism increasing daily and the longer summer evenings approaching, there are genuine fears the powder keg that is Page Hall will explode - which explains Mr Blunkett’s intervention.



Local landlord Mohammed Rashid says he has seen paperwork proving that within a few days of arriving, Roma go to the local advice centre and are helped by officials to claim housing benefit to pay their rent and benefits for every child.



‘The word soon gets back to their villages in Slovakia,’ he adds. ‘If you were a Roma in a poor part of Europe, wouldn’t you come to Britain if it was that easy to get up to £2,000 a month?’



His answer to the problem? ‘Mr Blunkett,’ he says, ‘must tell the Government to stop these benefit hand-outs now. The Roma would go home and Page Hall would have a future again.’



Visiting Page Hall is a deeply depressing experience. The Roma people have been oppressed for generations in Eastern Europe, where they have often been cruelly marginalised and routinely excluded from jobs and education.



Understandably, they see welfarist Britain as a land of milk and honey.



The bitter irony is that in this area it is a previous generation of immigrants who are often their most vocal critics.

