Report: Immigrants stressing English towns

LONDON, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Foreigners taking 54 percent of the new jobs in Britain in the last decade have severely strained local services, Britain's Telegraph reported Sunday.

The government "has not funded local government to cope with the extra stresses," said Damian Green, the Conservative immigration spokesman. "Even though the vast majority of those who have come here are good, hard-working people, the effect on local services is often catastrophic."

The immigrants bring much-need skills but also strain schools, community relations, the healthcare system and housing stocks, according to statistics released Saturday by the House of Commons library.

Nearly 700,000 eastern Europeans, two-thirds from Poland, have moved to the UK since their countries joined the European Union in 2004. Many have favored rural towns in southern England not equipped to handle the influx, the Telegraph reported.

Far fewer numbers of immigrants were found to have relocated in northern England, Scotland and Wales.