GETTY Local councils have offered to house refugees after Cameron promised to take 'thousands more'

FREE now SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Make the most of your money by signing up to our newsletter fornow We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

The demands come after 40 councils responded to calls by Labour leadership contender Yvette Cooper for the UK to take 10,000 refugees. The Prime Minister bowed to intense political pressure on Friday by announcing the UK would welcome "thousands more" people in refugee camps in countries bordering Syria such as Jordan and Lebanon. The United Nations suggested Britain will take another 4,000 refugees fleeing Syria's brutal civil war, but Downing Street has insisted no decision has yet been made on numbers.

The Local Government Association (LGA) warned that significant sums were already being spent on supporting refugees in the UK and that additional funding from Whitehall would be needed. David Simmons of the LGA's asylum, refugee and migrant task force said councils in England were currently housing 2,000 refugee children without parents, costing £50,000 a year for each child. A further £150million is being spent a year on families who have had their asylum applications turned down but are still in the UK. Since 2011, Britain has welcomed 5,000 Syrian refugees, including 1,000 last year. Mr Simmons said: "If we are going to scale those numbers up significantly we need to make sure that those kinds of resources are available to England's councils and also other public services to make sure that we have what is required in terms of school places, hospital beds, [and] GPs". He said councils would welcome more refugees fleeing worn-torn Syria if more families followed the example of Bob Geldof, who has volunteered to put up four refugee families at his homes in Kent and London.

However, Mr Simmons suggested the priority would be to house refugees who are already in the UK rather than those awaiting re-settlement from camps elsewhere. He said: "I am sure that many local councils would be delighted if those who have got space are making that offer because I am sure that we could offer those places to some of the refugee families who are already in the UK." Since the publication this week of images of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach - whose death also prompted Mr Cameron's action - charities revealed British families have flooded them with offers to house refugees. A spokeswoman for the charity Refugee Support Network said: "In the last few days we have receieved more inquiries from members of the public offering to accomodate refugees than in the last five years." Ms Cooper - who has received support from 40 councils so far after writing to council chiefs in England, Scotland and Wales - said local authorities around the country had shown a "rising sense of moral purpose" and it was now up to the Government to respond. She said: "There is a real determination and rising sense of moral purpose across Britain to help desperate families. But now the Prime Minister needs to match it. "I'm once again urging the Government to work with councils to offer as many as 10,000 places for refugees and be part of a national mission to deal with this terrible humanitarian crisis."

Powerful images as migrants protest in Hungary Tue, April 4, 2017 Migrants protest outside Budapest's Keleti Railway Station after it was closed off by police to prevent people travelling on to western Europe Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 53 A migrant taunts Hungarian riot police as they fire tear gas and water cannon on the Serbian side of the border, near Roszke

There is a real determination and rising sense of moral purpose across Britain to help desperate families Yvette Cooper