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Steve Parsons/PA Wire
World News

Calais wall won't stop migrants, warns Christian refugee charity

Seeking Sanctuary spoke on Premier's News Hour after it was revealed a 1km-long barrier expected to cost £1.9 million will be constructed along a motorway to the French town's port.

Phil Kerton from the organisation said: "I'm far from sure it's the right answer, walls have proved pretty useless in the past, the Berlin Wall of course... people will just go around the end of it I believe."

"The way the governments have reacted to the situation far from addresses the scale of the problem, by setting the local inhabitants, the lorry drivers and the exiles in the camp against each other, rather than seeking to find solutions that could help them at all."

Speaking before the Home Affairs select committee on Tuesday, Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill confirmed plans for the new wall.

He said: "The security that we are putting in at the port is being stepped up with better equipment. We are going to start building this big new wall very soon. We've done the fence, now we are doing a wall."

The plan has been criticised by the Road Haulage Association as "a poor use of taxpayers' money" and it's chief executive Richard Burnett suggested cash "would be much better spent on increasing security along the approach roads".

Phil Kerton also told Premier people living in the migrant camp in Calais, nicknamed The Jungle, have the potential to contribute to society.

He added: "They are adventurous people. They're able people who would contribute well to society if any government took them in - and so they go out and try to get into Britain. That annoys - to say the least - everybody, and puts them in great danger."

French authorities entered the southern section of The Jungle in February to clear hundreds of shelters.

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