Channel crossings Coastal residents step in to fill gaps in refugee support

Images of Dover and the beaches along the Kent coastline have come to symbolise small boat crossings in the UK, often attracting anti-migrant protests as a result.

- Jessica Murray

"Everyone's like: 'Oh look at Dover, everyone's coming here' - they're really not," said Charlie Zosseder, the director of the charity Samphire, which works to improve community cohesion between migrants and residents in the town.

"When we have issues, it tends to be people coming down from London because they've seen the news, think all the small boats are going there: 'Let's go and protest.' Well, thank you, but no thank you. You don't see many locals coming out for the anti-migrant protests."

Many people living in these areas have little direct contact with those who over the last 10 years have crossed the Channel on small boats and landed on their shores. Most are intercepted en route, or immediately on arrival, by Border Force officials and taken to the Manston asylum centre nearby, before being sent elsewhere.

Fishers and sailors in the Channel receive hourly VHF radio messages telling them to look out for small boats carrying undocumented migrants, but otherwise there's little outward sign of the crossings that generate so much debate across the country.