The Government has agreed to pick up Richmond Council's bill for housing refugees and asylum-seekers.

A special one-off grant of £750,000 will help pay for looking after foreign visitors, whose numbers have increased by 500 per cent since last Christmas.

Richmond Council leader David Williams said: "This should cover almost all the unforeseen costs of housing refugees and asylum seekers.

"This is a welcome relief to us because we were going to have to take that money out of our reserves but our reserves are low and it would cause us serious problems.

Coun Williams said he was also "optimistic" that the Government would make a similar payment to cover Richmond's costs in the financial year starting on April 1, 1999.

If the Government's legislative programme stays on course, by April 2000 local councils like Richmond will not have to shoulder the burden with central government taking financial responsibility for refugees.

Richmond Council director Peter Wilson has reported that the stream of asylum-seekers coming into Richmond is now becoming a trickle.

He said: "The last few weeks have been fairly quiet and we are not seeing the influx which we got over the summer months."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.