Migrant labour conditions checked

Concerns have been raised about living conditions for migrant labour

Police and local authorities are carrying out visits to farms in Cornwall to check on conditions being offered to migrant workers.

As many as 50,000 people from other European states now live and work in the South West.

A survey of 500 employers in Cornwall revealed a large proportion rely heavily on migrant workers.

Penzance Job Centre said 74% claimed their firms would suffer or shut down completely without migrant labour.

Enforcement notices

Spokesman David Sillifant said: "Unemployment is much lower in Cornwall than it was 20 years ago.

"There are no longer the sources of local labour available for firms, such as the meat processing industry, the agriculture industry and a lot of the manufacturing industry."

Insp Mark Bolt from Devon and Cornwall Police said if Cornwall was not an attractive place to work for migrant labour, then local industries could suffer.

He told BBC News: "We've had some intelligence in to say that some of the sites we're planning to visit are housing migrant workers in ways that you or I would not want to be housed in.

"So we do feel we may go in and find, with environmental health, some conditions which are injurious to health."

Last year, police carried out a raid on a farm near Helston housing a large number of Polish and Lithuanian agricultural workers in a caravan encampment.

A number of enforcement notices were served after some of the caravans were found to be overcrowded, damp and cold.