Rooker Shuts Liverpool Asylum Tower Blocks

In his last act as Minister for Immigration, Lord Rooker ordered the closure of the ‘Landmark’ and the ‘Inn in the Park’, the two tower blocks in Liverpool which were used to make misery of the lives of asylum seekers.

This is a magnificent victory for all those activists in Liverpool and Merseyside who campaigned to have the tower blocks closed the day after they started putting asylum seekers in to them.

MP Louise Ellman, who supported the campaign to close the tower blocks, said: "I am delighted with this decision which is long overdue. We have been campaigning to stop exploitation of vulnerable people. "The whole sorry story has reflected badly on the National Asylum Support Service. But it reflects well on Lord Rooker who has now responded positively."

She said: "It is a disgrace that these blocks were ever used. The council sold them because they were unfit for human habitation. Most of the time the lifts didn’t work. Flats were not secure, windows were broken, fittings vandalised, and people lived in fear. They suffered an atmosphere of intimidation."