Sanctuary Strategy 2025-28 and action plan

Reading has been a City of Sanctuary since 2015, helping to build a culture of hospitality across the borough for people seeking sanctuary.

In 2016, Reading Borough Council resolved to support the City of Sanctuary movement, and in 2022, agreed to reaffirm this commitment by developing a council-wide Sanctuary Strategy to ensure we have a clear direction as a local authority on the actions we will take, with the continued support from our voluntary and statutory partners, to meet the needs of Reading’s sanctuary seeking residents.  

We have consequently developed the council’s Sanctuary Strategy and action plan which aims to embed across the council a culture of welcome to those seeking sanctuary, and serves as a framework for the council’s response to and relationship with national government programmes.

More specifically, the strategy: 

• celebrates some of the successful work that has already taken place in this space over the past few years 
• sets out the council’s vision and objectives for the future in terms of sanctuary and refugee and asylum seeker integration  
• includes an action plan for how we achieve these objectives over the next three years.  

The strategy was developed in consultation with the voluntary and community sector and other partners who have been supporting sanctuary seekers in Reading for some time, and are therefore ideally placed to comment on the issues faced by this client group, as well as people with lived experience.

The strategy and action plan will be monitored bi-monthly by the Reading Sanctuary Partner Forum.

For further information on the strategy or the Sanctuary Partner Forum, please contact Clare.Rogan@reading.gov.uk.

Reading Borough Council Sanctuary Strategy

Sanctuary Strategy action plan

Support for refugees