Asylum hotel closures may shift cost to councils, councillors warn

Councillors are warning that local authorities may have to house migrants in the very same hotels the government have said they will no longer use. 

The government announced plans to end contracts with 50 hotels housing asylum seekers by the end of the year. 

Official figures show hiring these hotels cost the taxpayer £8m a day. 

The Local Government Association (LGA) told the BBC that this cost may pass down to councils, who are required to house refugees in need. 

“We’ve got a housing shortage, we’ve got a huge demand on temporary accommodation, and we’ve got councils in financial strain,” Shaun Davies, chairman of the LGA, and also a Labour councillor, said.

He questioned where local governments were supposed to house refugees once they became councils’ responsibilities.

Whilst hotels were not a “long-term solution” for housing refugees, Davies said the question had to be, “If not those hotels, then where?”

“That’s the irony in this situation, that one part of the system might boast that they’re doing relatively well but actually, that’s shunting the issue and the cost to local taxpayers,” he said.