Private security officers have begun their first patrols in parts of Essex where some women say they have become fearful about going out alone amid concerns over groups of male migrants. Within minutes of starting duty, the team was called to its first reported incident.

Reform-run Essex County Council has introduced the private security presence in Colchester, Braintree and Chelmsford, with the inaugural patrols getting under way this morning.

Residents in Colchester say the mood in the city can noticeably change on days when asylum seekers are transported from MDP Wethersfield, the former RAF site in rural Essex.

Some local people allege that women have been advised to dress more conservatively, while girls have reportedly been recorded on phones. Groups of young men have also been accused of staring at residents, making remarks and causing intimidation.

Reform said its new Operation Vanguard patrols were introduced as a “direct response” to concerns voiced by residents, especially women and girls, about gatherings of male migrants in town centres.

Shortly after the security operation was launched, officers were called to an incident in central Chelmsford.

Two operatives were approached by members of the public after four masked teenagers entered a Poundland store. The callers believed the group were migrants. The officers went inside, instructed the youths to leave and monitored them as they went on their way. They also spoke with several members of the public about the purpose of the patrols.

The move follows claims from some Colchester residents that the arrival of asylum seekers has had such an impact that women and families are choosing to stay away from the city centre.

Elena Sokolova, 38, told the Daily Mail: “The issue is that they do not integrate into society. I am a migrant myself, and I integrated into the British way of life.

“The men make comments about women and tell them they should dress differently and cover up. They film girls around the town. It is awful. It is really concerning.”

‘Their attitude is totally different. More efforts need to be made to get them to integrate into the British way of life. That’s what I had to do. But they have their own culture.’

For Sophie Edmonds, 33, the problem is personal.

The shop worker says she has experienced ‘big issues’ with migrant men and now avoids walking around Colchester alone.

‘Me and my friends have had comments and looks. They make noises. I hate it. We don’t walk around here on our own. It’s too worrying.

‘They stare in groups. It’s really intimidating. I’ve lived here all my life. I never had a bad experience in Colchester until the migrants moved into the camp.

‘I feel so passionately about it because you shouldn’t feel unsafe in your own town. You should be fine to walk out in the day and go to work without fear of something bad happening. Nobody listens to us though.’

Ms Edmonds believes the impact extends beyond young women.

‘I think everyone is impacted. The town is nowhere near as busy as it used to be. You’d rather shop in a town where you’re not going to feel scared to walk through. That makes sense if people are being menaced.

‘It feels like a no-go area.’

Locals in Chelmsford said they were ‘relieved’ and ‘overjoyed’ at the scheme.

John Howes, who lives nearby, said his wife and daughter are now too scared to enter Chelmsford.

The 66-year-old said: ‘My wife and daughter came on Saturday night into Chelmsford and they won’t be coming back.

‘I think this is a really good idea. People are terrified. I know a woman who has been followed across the town by a migrant. Some are really scared.

‘The vibe of Chelmsford has changed totally since the migrants moved into that former RAF base. They hang around in big groups, it’s very disturbing.

‘People are too afraid to walk the streets alone. How did it come to this? It’s appalling. I am relieved at these new patrols in action.’

Mr Howes said he felt ‘reassured’ by the new security. He said: ‘It’s a very good feeling. We need to get our area back.’

Lee Summers, 45, has lived in Chelmsford all his life, and said lack of police on the streets had made the situation worse.

He added: ‘You don’t see police around here. Yet there’s been numerous reports for months and months now. I know women who come out in groups. They won’t come in here alone.

‘It’s a good idea to have these extra patrols. But how did it come to this? Where have the police been? That’s the shocking reality of it all. I feel safer for my family to know they’ll be extra boots on the ground.

‘But I’d like to see them out of that centre once and for all. I’m just overjoyed we have a council that’s finally seeing the problem and taking action.’

Lea Sessions, 59, said she was aware of reports of migrants following women in the town.

She said: ‘I feel so intimidated here. I have had someone follow me. I know migrants have followed women and girls as well. We’re all so worried.

‘I think we’re right to be worried. I’ve been saying we need some private security on the streets. It’s a really worrying situation.’

The patrols are from the company My Local Bobby, owned by former Metropolitan Police detective chief inspector David Mckelvey.

Mr Mckelvey said he was pleased with the partnership, adding: ‘This is about making people safer and making people feel safer.

‘The patrols provide reassurance. We have teams up and down the country and this is the latest patrol we have.’

The concerns have now become serious enough to prompt Essex County Council to act.

Yesterday, the council launched Operation Vanguard, which will put six private security guards on patrol in Colchester, Braintree and Chelmsford for a three-month trial period. 

Essex County Council leader Peter Harris says the council is particularly concerned about women and girls.

He says the Home Office now operates 17 minibuses taking residents of Wethersfield into the three towns and cities on a daily basis.

Colchester City Council has welcomed the additional resources, while stressing that the transport arrangements are a Home Office decision rather than something requested by the city.

‘The transport of residents from the Wethersfield site into Colchester is a Home Office arrangement and not something requested by the City Council,’ said council leader Paul Dundas.

The site itself lies around 15 miles away at the former RAF Wethersfield airfield.

It began accommodating asylum seekers in July 2023 and is operated by Clearsprings Ready Homes on behalf of the Home Office.

It currently provides accommodation for single adult men aged between 18 and 65 while their asylum claims are processed.

The Government says the site is intended to be as self-sufficient as possible, with communal facilities, healthcare and recreational areas. 

Security staff are also present around the clock and residents undergo checks against immigration, security and criminality databases. 

But the site’s remote location means transport is provided into nearby communities where more services are available.

And that has created an unusual situation in Colchester, where groups of men from the same accommodation centre can arrive together in minibuses before spending time in the city.

Mary Sage, 70, has lived in Colchester for 30 years and believes those coming to Britain need to integrate more.

‘I think, regardless of who you are, if you’ve not lived in an area for three years then you should not get a house yet.

‘My feeling about all of this is, when will all of this stop?

‘For the migrants, what are they going to do? Dropping them off in a town means they’ll just be hanging around here in big groups. What are they going to be doing all day?

‘If you believe some people, we will soon have a doctor for every person in Colchester with the amount of migrants coming here.’

Shop worker Rebar Puladi, 24, believes more police are needed.

‘We don’t see police very often. It’s a real problem. The town is not as busy as it used to be. People, I think, have been put off from visiting.’

Alec Hillyard, 85, who has lived in Colchester all his life, also believes footfall has declined.

‘I am all for immigration, as long as when they come over here they can go to work. They should be learning skills. The town is more empty than it used to be.

‘And there’s plenty of things the taxpayer money should be spent on. We have terrible potholes for a start.’

Their concerns come as the Government prepares to increase the size of Wethersfield.

In June, the Home Office told Braintree District Council that the site’s standard operational capacity would rise from 800 to 1,245 – an increase of more than 50 per cent.

It also wants the centre to continue operating beyond 2027. The site has 1,245 bedspaces and the Home Office now intends to use them throughout the year.

That has provoked fury among local politicians.

Mr Harris has accused the Government of shifting the consequences of its asylum policy onto Essex communities, arguing that while hotels are being closed, asylum seekers are instead being concentrated at sites such as Wethersfield and transported into neighbouring towns. 

Braintree District Council has also criticised the decision, saying the rural site lacks the infrastructure to accommodate such numbers.

The Home Office insists that the purpose of Wethersfield is to provide managed accommodation and help end the use of expensive asylum hotels.

It also says transport into local communities is provided where necessary to access services that are not available on site.

It also added that public safety is a priority and that the Wethersfield site has 24-hour security, CCTV and ongoing engagement with Essex Police and local authorities. 

A British expat who traded Sydney for his picturesque seaside hometown has revealed that, after returning, he quickly realised home no longer felt the same.

Fraser, 25, moved back to St Ives, Cornwall, after spending two years in Australia, hoping to be nearer to his family. Living on the other side of the world had become increasingly difficult as he watched his parents and younger brother grow older from afar.

He had missed birthdays and Christmas celebrations, craved authentic fish and chips and English beer, and missed having the freedom to simply ‘pop home’ and spend time with the people he loved.

But the homecoming Fraser had pictured did not quite happen. Rather than settling back into Cornwall, he found himself yearning for the opportunities and lifestyle he had embraced in Sydney — and wondering how he had once been satisfied with his old life.

‘I realised the UK wasn’t my home anymore after the first week,’ he told the Daily Mail.

His experience reflects a dilemma facing many young Britons and Australians who spend years ‘ping-ponging’ between the two countries. They move abroad in pursuit of stronger careers, warmer weather and a better lifestyle, only for homesickness, family commitments or visa issues to eventually draw them back.

For Fraser, however, returning to Cornwall felt like attempting to fit back into a life he had already outgrown.

‘When you travel, explore, give yourself to the world, it shows you so much. It’s life’s greatest lesson – experience,’ he said.

‘I’ve changed dramatically over the years and especially in Australia, so coming home you feel almost like a big fish trying to squeeze back into this tiny fishbowl and you’re thinking, “How on earth did I even fit in there to begin with?”.’

‘I wanted more’

Fraser’s decision to leave St Ives in the first place had been years in the making.

Growing up watching travel YouTubers and films including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he became convinced there was more to life than his Cornish childhood offered.

‘I knew there was more to the world and I wanted to see it, to experience it,’ he said.

St Ives attracts scores of visitors to its beaches and picturesque streets each year, but Fraser said growing up in a heavily seasonal tourist town was very different to visiting one on holiday.

‘In the winter there’s no jobs as the businesses close to save money because no one’s coming down on holiday during that time. I felt stuck and limited,’ he said.

He also watched people around him fall into what locals called the ‘St Ives Cycle’.

‘You essentially work all week, feel burnt out, so you get drunk on the weekend and spend most of your wages and then repeat the cycle,’ he said.

Sydney was the contrast he had sought, while the city’s outdoor lifestyle changed how he wanted to spend his days. By the time he returned to Britain, those wants became impossible to ignore.

‘Your friends back home feel a bit more distant than before – or at least for me – as we’ve changed so much in the time apart,’ he said.

‘Growing up in such a tiny seaside town at the edge of the UK, as beautiful as it is, the opportunities, the people, the exposure to different cultures, places you can travel… it’s so ridiculously limited and I wish I could enjoy it more.’

The 6am moment that made him miss Australia

It was Fraser’s morning routine that provided one of the first signs he might struggle to settle back into British life.

‘I realised the UK wasn’t my home anymore after the first week. I’d get up at 6am and go for a run and no one would be around,’ he said.

‘I’d then try desperately to find any coffee shop that was open and nothing. All open at 8 or 9am and the coffee being average or below adds to that too.’

He had become particularly attached to the Australian enthusiasm for squeezing as much as possible into the hours before work.

‘The Aussies have a great mindset in which it’s winning the morning,’ Fraser said.

‘When you get up, run, coffee with your friends, sea swim, have a “5-to-9” before your “9-to-5”, there’s something about it that makes your day feel yours.

‘You’ve achieved greatness before 9am, in which the majority of the UK are rolling out of bed.’

Fraser believes Australians have ‘nailed’ the art of making the most of everyday life.

‘Health and wellbeing is so natural to them and that’s why they’re all so happy grinding out work, success, health. To me it’s just such a better understanding of what seizing the day is,’ he said.

He found the British attitude he returned to markedly different.

‘A lot of Brits are comfortable and just say, “That’s that then,” when it doesn’t have to be,’ he said.

It’s a comparison that will inevitably divide people on both sides of the world – particularly Australians who dream of escaping to Europe and Britons who would happily trade grey mornings for a Sydney sea swim.

Yet that push and pull is exactly what keeps many young expats moving between the two countries.

Australia offers sunshine, higher wages in some industries and an outdoor lifestyle that can be difficult to give up. Britain offers proximity to family and friends, familiar traditions and easy access to Europe.

The problem is that after experiencing both, neither necessarily provides everything.

He came home because he was terrified of losing time with his family

‘Why I came home’  

Despite everything Fraser loved about Australia, there was one thing Sydney could never give him: proximity to his family.

‘My main reason for coming home was my family,’ he said.

‘I would see pictures of them over the years I was away and I could see them ageing and it terrified me.’

Watching his younger brother grow up through photographs was particularly difficult.

‘My brother going from 16 to 18 and seeing a man rather than my little brother, missing birthdays, Christmases – I felt detached from my family as I couldn’t just “pop home” to see them for a weekend,’ he said.

There were other things he genuinely missed about Britain too.

‘I missed the warm friendliness of the people I know here,’ he said.

‘Being alone in a city is extremely isolating but also quite nice. Here at home I know everyone, so it’s impossible for me to not bump into someone I know.

‘Fish and chips, full English, English beers, going in the sea and not worrying about sharks or blue-ringed octopuses.’

But even the safety and familiarity he once craved have become part of the problem.

‘It’s safe here but almost too safe. There’s no real world, it’s an isolated little pocket of the world.’

‘People tell me I need to be more optimistic’

Perhaps the most difficult part of returning has been explaining his disappointment to people who cannot understand how anyone could be unhappy living in St Ives.

‘When you come home and you look at your old life you kind of go a bit like, “Oh… is this it?”,’ Fraser said.

‘I say to people, “Man, I miss Sydney”, or that I’m not enjoying being back home and they tell me, “You need to be more optimistic, this place is beautiful”.’

Fraser accepts they have a point. He knows he grew up somewhere millions of tourists would consider an enviable place to call home.

But he doesn’t believe recognising St Ives’ beauty obliges him to want to spend his life there.

‘It would be the equivalent of having a super comfortable king-size bed and then going to a stale mattress single bed,’ he said.

‘Sure, you can appreciate it and be optimistic or whatever, but sometimes you don’t have to be. And I don’t want to be.

‘I’ve spent 22 years of my life here. I’ve completed it over and over and over again and so I’m sick of it. And that’s okay.’

The response from people around him has occasionally made Fraser question whether he is supposed to feel guilty for wanting more.

‘People here will tell you that you’re the problem when I don’t believe I am,’ he said.

‘If you’ve experienced greatness – going back to mediocrity is hard and I don’t care what anyone says.’

His experience captures the difficult reality behind the expat fantasy of eventually ‘coming home’.

Moving abroad can create homesickness for the people and rituals left behind. Returning can then produce a different kind of homesickness altogether – this time for the person, routine and life built overseas.

And for the Australians and Brits who find themselves repeatedly crossing the world in search of the place that feels right, home can eventually become less straightforward than the country written on their passport.