Asylum seekers living in hotel rooms after travelling to the UK claim it is like "living in jail" and they are "bored", according to a report. The Mail Online says the cost of housing refugees in the 395 hotels being used by the Home Office is £6.8m a day, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman planning to end the scheme as it does not represent "good value for money".
The Mail says that the Government is expected to shortly announce plans to stop the practice in favour of using converted disused military sites after the use of hotels sparked controversy in some of the areas where migrants have been placed. Protests by the far-right and anti-fascists have taken place near migrant hotels in Liverpool and Cornwall in recent weeks.
However, the Mail says that some migrants are also not happy with the scheme used to offer them temporary accommodation. It says that around 150 asylum seekers living in the three-star Grosvenor Hotel, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, are unhappy with their living spaces.
Iraqi mother Neshteman Tahir, 37, told the Mail: "It's awful here and there are too many problems. We don't want to be living all together in a hotel, we want a house so we can be independent.
"No one likes living here. We all hate it and we are shut in our rooms all day with nothing to do. The hotel is very, very bad. We want a proper home."
Mrs Tahir’s eight-year-old son said that it was "really boring" in the hotel. Another mother at the hotel with her young daughter said: “We’re bored here. The rooms are too small and the food is bad. It is like being in a jail.”
In the four-star Great Hallingbury Manor, in Essex, local residents have complained they are being denied services from the local authority and are worried about young men roaming around the area. The Mail quotes a 38-year-old IT worker who recently moved into the area as saying: "A week after we moved in, we had guys knocking on our door asking for money and cigarettes. I had my mountain bike worth £400 stolen from my back garden last Christmas.
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"A delivery driver saw it being taken by some of the guys from the hotel. I later saw a couple of them with my bike outside the hotel, so I called police."
Far-right extremists have targeted some migrant hotels with clashes in February outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley, Merseyside, that saw a police van set on fire.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable – there are currently more than 51,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £6 a day. The Home Office is committed to making every effort to reduce hotel use and limit the burden on the taxpayer.”
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