Row over asylum plan for hotel
25 Jan 2023 10:01
Published by:
Scott Callan
THE new leader of Trafford Council has written to the Home Secretary raising concerns over a “lack of dialogue and planning” in a decision to house up to 121 asylum seekers at a hotel in Hale village.
In his letter to Suella Braverman, Tom Ross said the Home Office move to house the people at the Britannia Ashley Hotel had not been helped by the “disjointed and confusing implementation”.
He told her: “We object to the principle of using hotels in this way as they are not a suitable type of accommodation to house and support asylum seekers in the right way.”
The council said that a week before the asylum seekers’ arrival in Hale it had not been informed of the make-up of the group or how long they would be staying at the hotel.
Councillor Ross said: “I felt it was important to write to the Home Secretary to set out our concerns about the lack of information and basic planning behind this decision.
“As a local authority, we have a series of legal obligations which we are obliged to fulfil, but we are also entitled to point out that housing asylum seekers in hotels without the proper support arrangements is simply not good enough.”
He added: “We have teams on stand-by and have moved quickly to make all necessary arrangements, but the lack of clarity from the Home Office is a problem.
“We have received a lot of messages in recent days pointing out that this move might even constitute a change of purpose in regard to the hotel. I have asked the council’s planning team to look into the matter.”
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