Seafront hotel no longer to be used for asylum seekers

A large seafront hotel in Blackpool will no longer be used to house asylum seekers from the end of July, the government has confirmed.

The Metropole Hotel, near the North Pier on Blackpool Promenade, was commissioned under the previous Conservative government in 2021 to house asylum seekers for three months - but has been in use ever since.

Labour MP for Blackpool South, Chris Webb, had campaigned for the contract to end, citing safety concerns for vulnerable families and strain on local services.

Reacting to the announcement, he said: "We have done our fair share, it's time for that hotel to return to a holiday use, be reinvested and to be a shining beacon of our community once again."

Webb said all the asylum seekers living in the Metropole would be rehoused in sites across the north-west of England, and he had been told that would not include Blackpool.

"This has been a huge strain on local services," he told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"This has been predominantly a family hotel in Blackpool, so when you've got nearly half of young people and children in there it's had a strain on local GPs, local health, local schools without actually any additional resources."

Webb said it was time for "other areas" that had not hosted asylum seekers in hotels or other asylum seeker accommodation to "pay their fair share".

In July 2024, Blackpool, like many other locations across the UK, saw violent disorder in the wake of the Southport stabbing attacks - sparked in large part by false claims circulating on social media that an asylum seeker had been responsible.

Last February, Webb raised concerns that hundreds of vulnerable families, including many pregnant women, were being housed in "such a prominent location".

He said at the time: "I am hearing directly from asylum seekers in the hotel about the alleged mistreatment they are suffering, including a lack of access to food, poor hygiene standards, a lack of fire procedure, alleged verbal abuse, and the psychological torment of being housed in such an unstable and unsuitable environment."

At the time Serco, which is contracted to provide asylum accommodation by the Home Office, said: "We believe this hotel is safe and well-run, and we have met with MP Chris Webb to discuss his concerns."

The Labour government announced on Wednesday that 11 other hotels across the country would no longer house asylum seekers, as it bids to stop using hotels in this way by July 2029.

They said they would ramp up the use of "large, basic accommodation sites - like former military bases".

But the Conservatives said the government was "shunting people from hotels into residential apartments to hide what is going on".

The party said they would leave the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] so that illegal immigrants were deported within a week of arrival - not put up in hotels or apartments.

The Liberal Democrats said: "Closing asylum hotels is right for both communities and asylum seekers themselves, but it doesn't fix the problem; it just moves it elsewhere."

Meanwhile, Reform UK said: "It is absolutely shocking that the government is boasting about moving illegal migrants from one form of taxpayer-funded accommodation to another."

The Green Party said they supported the government's commitment to phasing the hotels out, but they wanted asylum seekers to be allowed to work, which would help remove the need for temporary accommodation.

Labour's Lynn Williams, leader of Blackpool Council, said the Metropole had housed parents and families in the town.

But she welcomed the decision to end its contract, and both Webb and Williams called on Britannia to re-invest the money earned from its Home Office contract to make improvements at the hotel.

Webb said: "We all saw the reviews before it became an asylum hotel - it wasn't the best let's be frank.

"So now is the opportunity after Britannia have made, let's be honest, an absolute fortune being a asylum hotel that they reinvest some of that money into the infrastructure and make sure this is once again a shining beacon for Blackpool.

Williams added: "It was a glorious hotel once and I want it to be loved and restored and part of our vision to make Blackpool better."

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