Grimsby housing development homes aren’t ‘exclusively for immigrants’

A video of a housing estate in Lincolnshire has been shared thousands of times online alongside claims that a local social housing provider has purchased a hundred new homes on the development “exclusively for immigrants”.

But this simply isn’t true.

A male voice behind the camera says he’s in the Ferriby Fields development in Grimsby built by Linden Homes.

While it’s true that Linden Homes has a site on Ferriby Fields comprising 299 homes, a spokesperson for Vistry, its parent company, clarified that “none of these homes are set to be ‘exclusively for immigrants’ or asylum seekers”.

The man in the video claims that Lincolnshire Housing Partnership (LHP) “has purchased a hundred of these properties exclusively for migrants”.

LHP is a local housing association and says it manages over 12,000 affordable rental and shared ownership homes in the county.

A spokesperson for LHP told us the organisation “does not have any plans to acquire homes on this site” and that “any claim that we do is false”.

LHP’s CEO Simon Parkes also replied to the video on X, saying it was “entirely untrue”, and that “we do not have any homes exclusively for immigrants”.

Vistry also told Full Fact it has “not contracted with Lincolnshire Housing Partnership on this site”.

Vistry said Ferriby Fields’ 299 homes are being delivered with a range of partners. These include the housing provider Amplius, which told us 71 homes on the development would be made available from them on a social rent basis. An Amplius spokesperson said: “We don’t reserve homes exclusively for immigration purposes and have no plans to change this approach.”

It added that the homes would be “allocated as per our Housing policy and through nominations via Home Choice Lincs, which are based on strict housing need criteria”.

Home Choice Lincs is run by a partnership of social housing providers across North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. It works with housing providers across the region to manage social housing applications and assess housing needs and says it takes into account whether people applying have a local connection to the area and the extent of this.

Housing and education provider Acis also has 61 homes on the site, of which 17 are shared ownership and 44 are rented. An Acis spokesperson told us that “tenants are nominated to us by the local authority (North East Lincolnshire Council)”.

Vistry told us that there would be 17 homes under shared ownership with “Heylo/Home Stepper”.

Heylo told us the firm had sold units on the site under shared ownership terms which were “available for anybody to apply for”. Sage Homes also said a “small number of homes at Ferriby Fields are available to buy through our Home Stepper shared ownership scheme, marketed by Vistry” and confirmed “these homes are open to anyone eligible for shared ownership and who can pass an affordability assessment with an independent financial advisor”.

Linden Homes said the 116 remaining homes were for the private rental sector and 34 were being sold on the open market.

The male voice behind the camera says he will “take a look around and get some information out of people” about the site after a whistleblower supposedly tipped him off about who will get to live in the new houses. We have approached the man for comment.

It’s important to rely on sources that are trustworthy and verifiable when sharing content you see on social media. Our toolkit has tips on how to do this.