Campaigners have called on Dorset County Council to take in at least three refugee children each year.

A deputation from the Safe Passage group made the plea 80 years on from the Kinder Transport which saw the UK take in 10,000 refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe.

Deputation leader Bernard Sullivan said the time had come again for the county to play its part.

The group is backed by faith groups and refugee support groups across the county.

Dorset has already started taking refugee children with the numbers so far running into double figures.

County councillors supported the plea, in principle, and told the group that they hoped the work which had already been started by the authority would be continued by the new Dorset County when it starts work in April next year.

It will then be asked by the group to commit to resettling 3-at risk refugee children every year for the next 10 years.

“If every local authority up and down the country commits to welcoming 3 child refugees every year, that will amount to 10,000 at-risk children welcomed to the UK. – the same number we welcomed under the ‘Kinder Transport’,” said Mr Sullivan, from Bourton, near Gillingham.

Councillor Andrew Cattaway put forward a motion to back the aims of the group – which won unanimous cross-party support.

Weymouth councillor Kate Wheller won applause for her story about a summer trip to France where her grandchildren watched as refugees tried to climb onto moving lorries, risking their lives to do so.

“My grandson said some of them looked the same age as him, he’s 14; and my granddaughter said ‘shouldn’t we just help them?’….if our grandchildren know the right thing to do, shouldn’t we?”

Cllr Susan Jefferies praised what she described as “super foster carers” who had come forward in the county to offer places to refugee children, but said that more were needed.

+ On Thursday (8th) the council sent out an advert for a full-time Syrian Resettlement Programme Officer paying between £30,700 and £36,000 a year. The advertisement, which is only available initially to council employees, says the funding for the programme is expected to continue until 2020.

The job advert reads: “As the lead for this programme you will oversee all activity and be responsible for ensuring Dorset is able to meet its commitments to the Home Office. This will include working extensively across the county with colleagues from within the local authority, frontline staff, volunteers and a range of different partner organisations as well as representatives from the Home Office and South West Council’s implementation team.

“If you have a genuine passion for making a difference to refugees, you are self-motivated, you are educated to degree level or equivalent, have experience in working with communities, volunteers and service providers are flexible in your approach to work and have relevant project implementation and / or commissioning experience, then we would like to hear from you.”