Relocated family care 'costing council over £1m'
Getty ImagesA council said care costs for a family which was relocated from another part of the country will cost more than £1m.
Hartlepool Borough Council said a vulnerable mother and her two young children were moved to the town in 2025 and there were "significant concerns" including ongoing child protection issues.
By January 2026, due to escalating risk, the two children required urgent foster placement and the council has estimated it will cost between £900 to £1,400 a week to support them.
A council spokesperson said given the ages of the children and the lack of family members available to help it would potentially cost the authority more than £1m.
The relocation was initially presented as a temporary housing solution but Hartlepool Council said "in reality the moving authority had secured a permanent tenancy for the family" in the town.
Following the move, the responsibility for the family's welfare shifted to Hartlepool Borough Council.
Labour council leader Pamela Hargreaves said it was "neither fair nor sustainable for authorities to relocate vulnerable residents many miles away from their existing support networks".
The local authority said at least 20 families had been recorded within the children's social care records after being relocated from other areas.
Hargreaves said: "This places additional strain on already stretched local services and, in our view, raises serious moral and practical concerns.
"We are committed to continuing to highlight this issue at a national level and for pressing for legislative and policy changes that ensure fair funding, proper cross-boundary accountability, and better protection for vulnerable families."
Labour MP for Hartlepool Jonathan Brash said the conduct of some local authorities was "nothing short of outrageous".
He said: "I have heard harrowing accounts of vulnerable families being bullied into signing papers under threat of homelessness, then bundled into taxis in the middle of the night with no idea where they're being sent, only to be dumped in Hartlepool.
"It is callous, it is exploitative and it treats people like cargo to be shipped out of sight."
He said the practice inflicts "real harm" on vulnerable families and piles pressure on "already deprived" communities like Hartlepool.
