A hotel boss says she has twice been offered an "obscene amount of money" to close her business to guests and instead accommodate asylum seekers. Dee Allen said the offers have been coming in since September 2021.
Mrs Allen, who runs the Hatters Hotel in Drummond Road, Skegness, with her husband, said she was offered £10,000 a week to house 52 refugees for at least three months. But she rejected the offer, saying it would have had a "negative" impact on the coastal town.
She told LincolnshireLive that she rejected the same "obscene" offer last month too. "We said at the time that we would never, ever do that to the community," she said. "They were also saying to us that it would be for an indefinite amount of time — not for just three months. They came back to us about four weeks ago and made us the same offer but we said no because our morals just wouldn't allow it."
The 35-year-old also alleged in an open letter she posted on Facebook that after turning down the offer, the local council trebled her business rates. Unbowed, she added: "We'll plough through and if we fall on the ground and hit rock bottom that will be it. We will never, ever, ever accept the money. We'd rather die, I think."
A full meeting of Skegness Town Council hit boiling point on Wednesday (November 16)when frustrated residents grilled their representatives over the issue. At least five hotels in Skegness have reportedly accepted the Home Office's offer to house asylum seekers.
On top of local anger, Matt Warman, the Conservative MP for Skegness and Boston, said the situation was the result of the immigration system "creaking at the seams". He added that the town was "not the best place" for asylum seekers to be housed.
Having bought the hotel 18 months ago, Mrs Allen said her fears were rooted in how accommodating the refugees could affect Skegness in the long term. "There are going to be no holidaymakers coming here because there'll be no hotels that can take them. It's going to turn into an absolute shambles," she said.
She added it was "heart-wrenching" to see what the people of Skegness were "going through" and the impact it was having on such a "tight-knit community". On November 16, Mrs Allen posted an open letter on the Hatters Hotel's Facebook page, denying rumours that she had accepted an offer.
The Home Office said using hotels to accommodate asylum seekers was "unacceptable" and that it was a "short-term solution". A spokesperson had said previously: "The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain.
"The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable – there are currently more than 37,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £5.6million a day. The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation."
Serco, a large company of 50,000 employees based in Hampshire, is contracted by the Government to provide accommodation for asylum seekers among other services such as in health, transport, justice, immigration, space and defence. Serco chiefs said the use of hotels was a "last resort". Jenni Halliday, its contract director for asylum accommodation services, said: "With the significant increases in the number of people arriving in the UK we have been faced with no alternative but to temporarily accommodate some asylum seekers in hotels.
"These hotels are only used as a last resort. But as a provider of accommodation services on behalf of the Home Office we have a responsibility to find accommodation for the asylum seekers that are being placed in our care. The Serco team is working extremely hard to move people into dispersed social housing as rapidly as possible."
Meanwhile, two Conservative Nottinghamshire MPs — Ashfield's Lee Anderson and Bassetlaw's Brendan Clarke-Smith — joined a number of Tory politicians vowing not to be "silenced" who would continue to name individual hotels housing asylum seekers. It came after the Refugee Council wrote to the Commons Speaker urging him to ask MPs not to identify hotels, to protect those staying there. This followed last month's firebombing of an immigration processing centre in Kent.
Immigration minister and Newark Conservative MP Robert Jenrick has said “Hotel Britain” must end, in a bid to disincentivise “asylum shopping”, with migrants set to be housed in “simple, functional” spaces, as opposed to “luxury” hotel rooms. Mr Jenrick insisted a move towards more basic accommodation was necessary to remove the “pull factor” for those making their way to the UK in small boats. He said that Britain should be “compassionate but not naïve”.
The Novotel Nottingham Derby in Long Eaton is being used to house asylum seekers. Residents in nearby Sandiacre have raised concerns, claiming "gangs" of male asylum seekers have been forming. It is understood that as well as the Novotel, the nearby Best Western Nottingham Derby hotel on Bostocks Lane, which links Long Eaton and Sandiacre, has been closed to the public for around two years for the same reason.
Elsewhere, asylum seekers have been housed at the Britannia Hotel in Maid Marian Way, Nottingham, and the Burrows Court apartment block in Sneinton. The Home Office is working to find emergency accommodation after more than 35,000 migrants crossed the channel by dinghy this year.
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
Find recommendations for eating out, attractions and events near you here on our sister website 2Chill
Find recommendations for dog owners and more doggy stories on our sister site Teamdogs
