LAUNCESTON Refugee Support Group intends to hold an additional meeting this month to develop an action plan to help bring a refugee family to Launceston in the summer.

The aim of the group is to work towards welcoming two Syrian families to Launceston, as part of the Government’s pledge to resettle some of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees in the UK.

It is raising funds to support bringing one or more Syrian refugee families to Launceston under a ‘hybrid’ scheme with Cornwall Council using the Government refugee resettlement programme.

It has been inspired by the Bude Refugee Support Group, which has already resettled one refugee family in its town, and has Home Office approval to resettle an additional family.

At its latest meeting on March 29, Launceston Refugee Support Group said it was updated by Serena Collins, from Cornwall Council, that council members ‘have signed off on proposed plans for Cornwall to take additional families in agreed sites across Cornwall under the local authority scheme, and that these plans include two families in Launceston using a hybrid support model.

Ms Collins also updated the group that the Government ‘has told the council it will be stopping the scheme after 2019, so [the group] need to ensure that we plan to have the second family arrive before December 2019’.

The group expressed its desire to lobby, ‘to show [its] dismay at how few families Britain is accepting and this decision to stop the scheme at the end of next year, despite no end to the conflict in Syria being in sight’.

Launceston Refugee Support Group has applied for charity status through the Charity Commission and awaits the outcome of this application.

The Launceston Refugee Support Group has a drop-off point for donated items every Tuesday at the Central Methodist Church from 10am to 12pm.

Details of items required can be found on the website lrsg.org.uk or the group’s Facebook page.

The group meets once a month on the last Thursday in the back room of the Bell Inn, 7.30pm.

Details of the additional meeting have not yet been decided.