Migrant hotel accommodation to continue despite cost of £6m a day

The Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough will be converted into «long-term contingency housing»; for migrants

Hotels are turning into "long-term" housing for asylum seekers, despite Rishi Sunak's promises to stop using them.

Owners are reopening abandoned hotels and negotiating 'long-term' accommodation; is partnering with the Home Office to take in hundreds of migrants.

These steps involve asylum seekers being accommodated in hotels, which ministers admit will be «longer than originally anticipated» as they seek discover alternative larger facilities such as former military bases.

In January, the Prime Minister pledged to «end the appalling situation of taxpayers paying to put illegal migrants in hotels.»

So far, five major projects have been identified to cut costs by £6 million a day. 51,000 asylum seekers are housed in nearly 400 hotels, but the government is facing opposition to converting them into migrant housing.

Migrant Channel per year

It has now emerged that the 170-year-old Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough is to be converted into «long-term contingency housing.»

Robert Jenrick, immigration minister, told local authorities. Conservative MP Paul Bristow said earlier this month that the Home Office needed to «use hotels for temporary accommodation for a longer period than originally intended, and this has resulted in the conversion of this hotel to long-term contingency accommodation.»< /p>

Mr Bristow said it was «the wrong hotel, in the wrong place at the wrong time» as the 41-bedroom hotel was part of an £8 million redevelopment of the city's forecourt.

The Home Office is also in talks to reopen a derelict hotel in the center of Worthing, West Sussex to house asylum seekers, despite having recently been denied planning to change its use to a shared living space consisting of 44 en-suite bedrooms with shared kitchen, dining room. and living quarters.

The Windsor House Hotel in Worthing has been closed for a year and former minister Tim Lawton, a local MP, said it was «the wrong place» in a densely populated area with a lot of similar facilities and hostels .

“We need to activate alternative housing such as army barracks or barges. Why should we commission more hotels if they say emptying them is a priority? Any attempt to rename them hostels would be disingenuous,” he said.

'It’s easy to say, but we must do it'

The owners of the second abandoned country hotel, Northop Hall in North Wales, are proposing turn it into a place for 400 «predominantly male» asylum seekers, of whom 250 will be accommodated in «modular living quarters» on its premises.

They are requesting permission to plan plans for which pre-consultation had already been completed earlier in this month.

Local MP Rob Roberts, a member of the Conservative Party but sitting as an independent, warned that local services would fail, but said ministers assured him there would be no «change of use» unless all planning and regulatory approvals were secured.< /p>

“Ministers said they were going to stop using hotels and issued press releases saying we were going to stop using them, so why continue? It's easy to say, but we have to do it,” he said.

Ministers have not set a deadline for ending the use of hotels, although they have promised to liquidate a backlog of 92,600 initial asylum applications by the end of the year.

However, the government faces legal action, with the first case set to go to court on Wednesday, with Braintree District Council seeking an injunction to block plans to turn the former RAF Wethersfield base in Essex into a camp for 1,700 asylum seekers.

Similar actions threaten asylum plans for RAF Scampton, former Dambusters Squadron base in Lincolnshire, a barge at Portland Port near Weymouth, Dorset, and HMP Northeye, a former prison at Bexhill, East Sussex.

Regarding the Great Northern Hotel, a spokesman for Peterborough City Council said: «We are still in discussions with the Home Office and are currently keeping all options open, including potential lawsuits.»

It is thought the council could accept measures on the grounds that there was a significant change in appointment from a hotel to a hostel in violation of planning rules.

A government spokesman said: “The number of people arriving in the UK who need accommodation has reached a record level and created an incredible load on our asylum system.

“The use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers is unacceptable – there are currently over 51,000 asylum seekers. in hotels costing UK taxpayers £6 million a day.

“The Department of the Interior is committed to making every effort to reduce the use of hotels as a contingency solution and reduce the burden on the taxpayer.”