Home Office insists single male asylum seekers WILL be moved into hotel despite angry protests

The Home Office has insisted single male asylum seekers will be moved into a hotel despite angry protests there. 

The contentious development at the 19-room Park Hotel in Diss, Norfolk, will see the men replace asylum-seeking families who have lived there for two years. 

Around 150 people took to the market town’s streets last month to protest the move after it was announced by the Home Office. 

South Norfolk Council has vehemently opposed the plans while the hotel’s owner has said it would sooner close than accept the new single male intake. 

But despite the furore, the Home Office has now insisted the scheme will go ahead , writing to the council to confirm it ‘intends to proceed’, the BBC reports. 

Meanwhile, the council has maintained it ‘will not accept’ this – and intends to use its planning enforcement powers to put a stop to it.  

The Home Office has previously said the changeover would begin last month. 

But currently, the new intake has not arrived at the hotel, with existing residents still living there. 

Council leader and Conservative Daniel Elmer has dubbed the plans disappointing and ‘completely unnecessary’. 

He explained as the hotel is already occupied by asylum seekers, the move would not be creating any extra capacity for housing them. 

The councillor said: ‘All it is going to do is upset a settled community; upset a community of asylum seekers that are already integrating very well into the local area, for no reason at all.’ 

Mr Elmer predicted more protests like last month’s were on the horizon – but urged participants to make them peaceful. 

The demonstration, which took place outside the hotel on Denmark Street on July 21, had been labelled as ‘peaceful’.

But footage posted on social media, including by supporters of far right activist Tommy Robinson, showed clashes between pro and anti-migrant groups.

The hotel’s owners released a statement after the rally: ‘We would also like to confirm and reassure the community of Diss that we have advised the Home Office and other stakeholders that, should this situation change, and we are formally notified that the hotel will no longer operate as a family-only establishment, we will have no alternative but to close.

‘There are currently vulnerable families and children staying at the hotel – many of whom are feeling frightened and uncertain about recent events at the hotel and their futures. 

‘We ask for understanding and sensitivity during this time.’ 

The council has said changing how the hotel is used in the way the Home Office intends to would need planning permission.

It added if the government department went ahead without that, it would serve a temporary stop notice on the site. 

If the Home Office breached this to press forward with the plans, it would be a criminal offence, the council argued. 

There is no right of appeal against a temporary stop notice. 

A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘The government is reducing expensive hotel use as part of a complete overhaul of the asylum system.

‘From over 400 asylum hotels open in summer 2023, costing almost £9million a day, there are now less than 210, and we want them all closed by the end of this Parliament.

‘We will continue to work closely with community partners across the country, and discuss any concerns they have, as we look to fix this broken system together.

‘The security of the local communities within which hotels are located will always be our paramount concern.’ 

A Norfolk Police spokesperson said: ‘Norfolk Police will continue to monitor the situation and provide a proportionate response, if needed, while respecting the right to peaceful protest and ensuring the safety of the local community.’ 

Cameron Ventures Group, the firm that owns the Park Hotel, declined to comment.   

It comes after protests broke out in other parts of the county too, including in nearby Watton. 

Around 20 protesters gathered outside the town’s Watton Vibe Hotel earlier this week, after rumours it would be used to house asylum seekers. 

The speculation began after locals spotted construction workers putting up temporary container bedrooms in the car park. 

In fact, the hotel, which has been closed for more than two years, was due to become an adult care facility but this plan recently fell through. 

A Breckland Council spokesperson said it was ‘not aware of any plans’ for the hotel to be used to house asylum seekers. 

Reform councillor Tina Kiddell she had been told the temporary bedrooms were instead for construction workers as the hotel is renovated for reopening. 

The demonstrations across Norfolk followed similar anti-migrant violence at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, last month. 

It came as an Ethiopian asylum seeker staying there was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl eight days after arriving in the UK.  

Angela Rayner has warned since anger at high levels of illegal immigration is risking social cohesion in Britain’s poorest communities and must be addressed, as fears grow of a new ‘summer of riots’.

The Deputy Prime Minister told the Cabinet last month they had to ‘acknowledge the real concerns people have’ about immigration and economic insecurity.

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned Britain is a ‘powder keg’ that could explode into a repeat of the street violence that followed the Southport murders 12 months ago – unless Labour gets a grip on migrant hotels.