Whitstable’s asylum-seeker base is almost at capacity as Kent County Council deals with an unprecedented surge in the number of migrants entering its care.

The Ladesfield centre, in Vulcan Close, is now home to 32 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

It has a capacity of 40 and is being used as a temporary reception centre for 16 to 17-year-old migrants.

The news comes as social services chiefs at KCC warn an unprecedented surge in the number of young asylum seekers is creating a “ticking time bomb” for the authority.

The surge shows no sign of letting up, with 77 arriving in Kent last week.

Kent County Council says it can no longer place new asylum-seeker children anywhere in the county and they are being taken to other authorities as soon as they reach the UK.

As of last Monday, there were 872 unaccompanied young asylum seekers being looked after by Kent, either in reception centres or with foster families, or with other authorities.

Last month, the figure was 750 and a year ago just 200.

Cllr Peter Oakford (Con), cabinet member for social care, told a cabinet meeting today (Mon): “We are now entering a time of the year when the number of arrivals would start to decline. We are now experiencing more arrivals than we would normally expect.”

"We are now experiencing more arrivals than we would normally expect..." - Cllr Peter Oakford

He said most were aged between 16 and 17, meaning that once they turned 18, they would continue to be KCC’s responsibility as adults in need of additional care, without those costs being met fully by the government.

“We are sitting on a ticking time bomb because the £7m costs will rise substantially.

“We are going to have to consider some serious courses of action. We are literally taking them [new arrivals] from the port and placing them out of the county because we do not have any facilities.”

He did not spell out what action the council would have to consider but the pressure the number of new arrivals is having was vividly underlined by KCC’s adult care director Andrew Ireland.

He said the council would need the equivalent of five additional social workers just to cope with the weekend arrival of 77 young asylum seekers.

Cllr Paul Carter, the Conservative leader of KCC, said the government needed to guarantee it would cover any additional costs that dealing with the increasing numbers required.