Lakeside hotel ‘inappropriate’ for asylum seekers

Two MPs have labelled the government’s decision to house asylum seekers at a lakeside hotel as “inappropriate” and “disappointing”.

The Home Office will house 146 asylum seekers at the Dragonfly Hotel in Thorpe Meadows, Peterborough, as first reported by the Peterborough Telegraph.

The two Labour MPs covering Peterborough, Andrew Pakes and Sam Carling, said they would keep “fighting” for clear information from government.

The Home Office told the BBC it had inherited an asylum system under “unprecedented strain”.

In a joint statement, the MPs said: “We have already spoken to ministers to express our strong opposition to the plans.

“We will keep fighting for clear information from the Home Office and to ensure the hotel is stood down as soon as possible.”

The hotel is located next to Peterborough’s rowing lake and borders Nene Park.

Peterborough City Council’s Labour leader, Dennis Jones, claimed that the local authority was already housing “far more” than its share of asylum seekers, compared with anywhere else in England.

Since the start of 2023, the council has bought at least 40 homes for refugees.

Mr Jones said the hotel location had limited access to amenities and services.

“Peterborough has a proud history of welcoming asylum seekers and others in need to the city, but in a planned and coordinated way. Our resources are already stretched – we are already well above our dispersed accommodation quota.”

A spokesperson for the Home Office said there were thousands of people stuck in a blacklog of asylum claims, and said it was “delivering” a major uplift in its attempt to remove people with no right to be in the UK.

“We remain absolutely committed to ending the use of hotels for asylum seekers and continue to identify a range of accommodation options to minimise their use,” they said.

About 97,000 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending June 2024.

The number of applications has risen gradually since about 2010, and more dramatically since 2020.

The Dragonfly Hotel, run by the Surya group, was contacted by the BBC.