‘BORED' ASYLUM SEEKERS SAY LIVING IN £6.8M TAXPAYER FUNDED HOTELS IS LIKE ‘LIVING IN JAIL'

Asylum seekers living in taxpayer-funded hotel rooms across Britain are "bored", upset with the "bad food" and say it's like "living in jail". Migrants reaching the UK via small boats across the English Channel are frequently sent to hotels which are being turned into refugee centres funded by Government incentives.

It's estimated it costs the taxpayer £6.8million a day to fund the Home Office scheme which has housed more than 51,000 migrants in around 395 hotels, the Mail Online reports.

A Government announcement is expected in coming weeks for plans to stop the practice in favour of using converted disused military sites.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has signalled she wishes the "unacceptable" migrant hotel housing scheme to end as the strategy nears maximum capacity and as it does not represent good value for money.

Using hotels has also thrown up controversy in the cities, towns and villages where migrants have replaced guests.

Protests by both the far-right and anti-fascists have taken place near migrant hotels in Liverpool, Cornwall and elsewhere in recent weeks.

But it is also the migrants who have not been happy with the scheme used to offer them temporary accommodation in their new chosen prospective country.

Around 150 asylum seekers living in the three-star Grosvenor Hotel, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warks, are unhappy with their living spaces, according to the report from MailOnline.

Iraqi mother Neshteman Tahir, 37, said: "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 he wanted a "big house" and a "trampoline" and 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."

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In a four-star hotel called Great Hallingbury Manor, in Essex, several young men from Africa and countries including Afghanistan are housed.

Local residents have complained they are being denied services from the local authority and are worried about young men roaming around the area.

A 38-year-old IT worker who lives nearby said he discovered asylum seekers were living in the hotel after he moved into the area.

He said: "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."

It's reported villagers in Great Hallingbury have now gotten used to the sight of groups of men aged in their 20s and 30s wandering down the road.

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 during disturbances.

The Government's Illegal Migration Bill would ban anyone who enters the country illegally from claiming asylum on arrival, or in the future, and is just one of the measures being rolled out to try and end the small boats crisis in the Channel.

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 £6million a day.

"The Home Office is committed to making every effort to reduce hotel use and limit the burden on the taxpayer."

2023-03-25T16:12:16Z dg43tfdfdgfd