Aylum seekers could be housed in former student accommodation as councils fold under the pressure of recent migrant hotel protests. The Government has proposed a scheme whereby it pays local authorities to buy or renovate properties and then lease them back to the Home Office to house asylum seekers. Sir Keir Starmer stressed this week that there “is no alternative” as hundreds of thousands of homes lie empty across the country.
He told a committee of MPs: “A central focus of what we are doing is what can be built, arranged or taken by councils and repurposed. I am impatient for this change to be driven through. We have to take over other accommodation, and we have to drive down the asylum lists. There is no alternative… There is lots of housing in many local authorities that can be used, and we are identifying where it can be used.”
England currently has 700,000 empty homes, official figures show, with 93,600 in London and 35,000 in Birmingham, Liverpool, and Leeds.
The pilot scheme would be funded by the Government, and around 200 councils have reportedly already “expressed interest” in signing up.
Border Security and Asylum Minister Dame Angela Eagle said the plan was to phase out the use of private accommodation contractors, opting instead for a “more democratically accountable” system alongside councils.
Rachel Reeves also set a target to scrap migrant hotels by 2029, though it is currently not clear how this will be achieved given the influx of Channel crossings.
This comes after recent protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex after one of its residents was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl after arriving in Britain on a small boat.
A local councillor revealed to the Express that the authority is exploring all possible options to shut the hotel down.
Epping Forest District Council has already voted to urge the Government to close the site, but it is understood to now be weighing up other options to shut the hotel.
Tory Councillor Holly Whitbread said: “The council has been exploring all the various different options and they’re still looking into options.
“Unfortunately, from what I understand, and I’m not the planning cabinet member, but in terms of the hotel being used, it’s being used lawfully, but we are exploring what options are available to us as a council to find other ways of challenging it.”