A London council will rent out an entire four-star hotel to house the homeless after seeing an explosion of families needing emergency accommodation.
Kingston council is set to take on every room at the Kingston Lodge Hotel and wedding venue in south west London for a whole year.
The local authority said in the five years since March 2019 the cost for housing homeless households in the borough had risen by £5million and the town hall had become “increasingly reliant” on hotels. A depleting number of rental properties and spiralling costs has forced the council to rely on budget options, it added.
Kingston Lodge, which dates back to 1726, approached the council with a proposal to let the entire 66-room hotel at a “lower nightly rate than currently being paid for Travelodge bookings”.
“The Council’s reliance on the use of emergency temporary accommodation has been steadily increasing over the last five financial years,” the town hall said.
“Between March 2019 and March 2024, the number of households increased by 304 and increasing costs saw the net costs to the Council rise by £5million - 276 per cent - over the same period.”
Kingston Lodge had previously served visitors to Richmond Park and Coombe Wood Golf Club next door and fans attending nearby Twickenham Stadium. But it struggled during the pandemic lockdown and in 2021 was briefly rented out by the Home Office to house migrants.
The council added: “Although it is recognised this accommodation is not self contained accommodation, the benefits, apart from the anticipated cost saving, of procuring rooms at Kingston Lodge will be access to wifi, fridges in rooms and cooking and laundry facilities which are not available in the Travelodge.
“It will also avoid households having to move rooms every 28 days which is the current rule with the Travelodge bookings.”
A spokesman for the town said there was no plan to extend the Kingston Lodge scheme for longer than a year but it “cannot completely rule it out at this stage”.
It comes as Greenwich council signed off spending up to £5million on hotel rooms for emergency accommodation as the number of homeless households in the borough hit a record high.
The town hall reserved 70 rooms at the Radisson Red near the O2 Arena for those with nowhere to live.
Umbrella group London Councils warned that there is an “urgent need for a new approach” to tackling homelessness after the National Audit Office found it was at its highest levels since comparable records began in the early 2000s.
Grace Williams, leader of Waltham Forest and London Councils’ Executive Member for Housing, said: “Homelessness represents a national emergency and urgently needs a new approach.
“Every homelessness case is a human tragedy. One in every 23 children in London is currently homeless and living in temporary accommodation.
“These rates of homelessness have massive impacts on individual wellbeing and opportunities, as well as contributing to unsustainable financial pressures on council budgets.
“But homelessness is not inevitable. Government policy could be far more effective in tackling homelessness and getting to grips with its underlying causes.
“Better co-ordination across government departments, greater housing security, sufficient funding for councils, and more investment in building affordable homes are key to turning the situation around.
“London boroughs are determined to work with the new government and the Mayor of London in tackling this crisis – there is not a moment to waste.”
