Handshakes, heckles and a row over security patrols near asylum base

In a town centre shopping street, two men wearing white shirts and bright red tabards are walking side by side.

They are security guards introduced in Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford, three locations frequently visited by asylum seekers, bussed in each day from MDP Wethersfield, a former RAF airfield in the Essex countryside.

The guards have been hired by the Reform UK-led county council in a new three-month initiative aimed at deterring anti-social behaviour (ASB) in response to what it says are residents' concerns.

As they walk through Chelmsford city centre, the guards get a mixed reception.

It highlights one of the most divisive issues in UK politics: the arrival of asylum seekers, mostly by boat; where to put them and how to treat them.

While some welcome the council's move, others have criticised it for stoking a backlash against migrants and ethnic minorities, something the administration denies.

The patrols, entitled Operation Vanguard, operate seven days a week from 10:00 to 18:00, with two guards in each of the urban centres.

They have no enforcement powers and no ability to make arrests. The council says any criminal matters will be referred to Essex Police.

As the first patrols get under way in Chelmsford, the guards are accompanied by council leader Peter Harris.

Some passers-by come up to shake their hands, including Tony Woolnough, who says: "They're good, but I would rather see genuine police officers."

Another hand-shaker is Abbie Duff. Afterwards she laughs and says: "Twelve hundred migrants and two people with no powers. That answers itself, doesn't it?"

But there are some heckles, including from Lucy, 45, who has lived in the city all her life.

"It's all performative and all he's [Harris] doing is casting Chelmsford in a bad light," she says.

"I was born here and I've never seen anything like this."

The council says the initiative is designed to be a deterrent and to provide reassurance.

It says it is trialling these patrols because people have "a fear" of going into town centres.

In Chelmsford, the city council already pays for extra police officers to patrol on Friday and Saturday nights to deal with ASB.

Wednesday is market day in Braintree, where stallholder Darren Allsopp welcomes the new patrols.

Although it is midday, his women's clothing stall has made just two sales.

"Business is horrendous," he says, the worst he has known in his 15 years in the town.

Allsopp blames the presence of asylum seekers for "no-one being in the town".

Women and children "feel intimidated", he says, claiming he has seen male migrants "ogling and looking at women, kissing their lips – they are rude".

He says he would "welcome anyone here" if they come legally and work.

On the asylum seekers, he says: "I just think they've got no respect. They're just here to take what they can take. They're not going to integrate."

One mother in her 40s, with her teenage daughter, says the patrols "are definitely needed".

"I don't like the idea of my daughter walking through town any more on her own," she says.

"I certainly wouldn't on a Wednesday and Thursday when they [the asylum seekers] are all here."

According to Essex Police, since June 2023 there have been 15 reported offences across the county in which a member of the public was the victim and the suspect was identified as, or alleged to be, a Wethersfield "service user".

Of those incidents, six occurred in Colchester, three in Braintree and five in Chelmsford.

So far during 2026, police have made 23 arrests relating to Wethersfield service users.

Four related to incidents in the wider Essex community, five to incidents outside Essex, and 14 to incidents at Wethersfield, the majority involving alleged offences between service users.

Chief constable Rachel Nolan told the BBC: "Crimes and incidents associated with the Wethersfield site are very low.

"Certainly as far as I've seen there is absolutely no reason for anyone to be concerned about criminality associated with migrants from the Wethersfield camp in Essex."

According to Office for National Statistics (ONS) crime survey data in the year ending March 2026, across Essex recorded ASB incidents were up 7.3% while overall crime was down by 0.9%.

In Chelmsford, ASB was up 8% and all crime was down by 4.5%. In Braintree, both were down, by 8.6% and 6.5% respectively. In Colchester, both were up, by 7.2% and 4.7% respectively.

The force said: "Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford town and city centres remain safe places, and all three areas experience less crime than they did three years ago."

But according to the March 2026 Crime Survey for England and Wales, 31.7% of people in Essex think ASB is a "very big" or "fairly big" problem in their area, with 46% saying they have witnessed or experienced it.

Maria Wilby runs Colchester-based Refugee, Asylum Seeker and Migrant Action.

"Colchester has a wonderful history of being a really diverse place and, until very recently, most people here would feel very happy walking around and not have any indication that they would face anything adverse, and that's changed," she says.

She believes the mood in Colchester towards migrants, and ethnic minorities more generally, has changed over the past year.

Wilby, who has Indian and Irish heritage, says she has experienced this first hand.

"I've been called names, questioned as to why I was at a pub quiz: was I a local person, what was I doing here?" she says.

"I've had staff members who have been chased down the street and certainly our clients are reporting far more hate incidents."

Her friend and colleague Joyce McIntyre, 46, has had similar experiences. The Kenyan-born British citizen has lived in Colchester for eight years, but in recent months has had people shouting "racist slurs" at her for the first time.

"It's been a safe place – never had issues," she says.

"It's just that suddenly people have got this boldness to shout at us, to call us whatever they want to call us. This never happened before."

McIntyre says there is "a horrible political atmosphere", and that some of the language used has "emboldened" some people to say things to ethnic minorities "without any repercussions".

Wilby believes the introduction of the security patrols has added to this atmosphere.

"The way that it's being announced, the rhetoric and the reason that it's supposed to be needed: I disagree with those reasons profoundly," she says.

Another colleague, psychologist Leena Alfrhat, is a former Syrian refugee herself.

She is supporting migrants who she says have experienced torture in their home country.

One was recently pushed off a bus in the centre of Colchester on the way to hospital, she says.

"A very vulnerable client, he's just been removed physically from the bus by another passenger, and everyone on the bus was clapping."

"That was really, really difficult for him. That's not happened before in Colchester."

Harris, meanwhile, says there is a "clear and present" safeguarding need for the patrols, explaining: "The whole purpose of doing this was to protect women and children: that's all women and children, of all ethnicities.

"This is not about creating racial divide at all, which is what some people have tried to make out. This is there to provide security for everyone that's coming into town."

As to whether the patrols become a permanent fixture, that depends partly on feedback from the community, he says.

Data from the first week of the trial shows the security guards were involved in five reported incidents of ASB and public drink and drug use, and four of retail crime.

Asked how many of these involved MDP Wethersfield residents, or those believed to be, the council said it was seeking clarification of this.

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