A Skegness hotel boss says she's been offered an 'obscene amount of money' on several occasions to close her business to guests and put up asylum seekers. Dee Allen, who owns Hatters Hotel in Drummond Road, told Lincolnshire Live the first offer came in September last year.
Mrs Allen, who runs the hotel with her husband, said she turned down a £10,000-a-week offer to house 52 refugees for at least three months. She said it would have had a 'negative' impact on the coastal town.
And Mrs Allen explained she rejected the same 'obscene' Government offer in October just gone. "We said at the time that we would never, ever do that to the community," said 35-year-old Mrs Allen.
Read more: 5 hotels in Skegness being used to 'house asylum seekers'
"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."
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 council meeting on Wednesday, November 16, reached boiling point when frustrated residents grilled Skegness Town Councillors over the ongoing situation. 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 the town was "not the best place" for asylum seekers to be housed in hotel accommodation.
Having bought the hotel 18 months ago, Mrs Allen said her fears were rooted in how the situation could impact Skegness in the long term. She said: "There are going to be no holiday-makers coming here because there'll be no hotels that can take them. It's going to turn into an absolute shambles."
She added it was "heart-wrenching" to see what the people of Skegness were "going through" and the impact it was having on the "tight-knit" community. On November 16, Mrs Allen posted an open letter to the Hatters Hotel's Facebook page, denying rumours that she had accepted any offers.
The Home Office said using hotels to accommodate asylum seekers was "unacceptable", saying it was a "short-term solution". A spokesperson 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 is contracted by the government to provide accommodation for the asylum seekers entering the UK and Serco chiefs said the use of hotels was a "last resort". Jenni Halliday, Serco’s 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", and to 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 after last month's firebombing of an immigration processing centre in Kent.
Immigration Minister and Newark's 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” rooms.
Mr Jenrick has insisted a move towards more basic accommodation is necessary to remove a “pull factor” for those making their way to the UK in small boats, as he insisted Britain will be “compassionate but not naive”.
The Novotel Nottingham Derby, in Long Eaton, is being used to house asylum seekers. But residents in nearby Sandiacre have raised concerns about 'gangs' of male asylum seekers forming.
It is understood that as well as the Novotel hotel, the nearby Best Western Nottingham Derby hotel on Bostocks Lane, which links Long Eaton and Sandiacre, has been closed for around two years for the same reason.
Elsewhere, asylum seekers have also been housed at the Britannia Hotel in Maid Marian Way, in Nottingham city centre, 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.
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