Old Palace Lodge: Around 90 adult male asylum seekers placed at Dunstable hotel - but 'no issues' to date

Around 300 people attended a public meeting in Dunstable last night, (Thursday, February 17) held in response to a town’s four-star hotel’s decision to house asylum seekers.

The Old Palace Lodge in Church Street agreed a lucrative contract with the Home Office to provide accommodation, with an initial 90 “adult males” bused in from London last week.

Officers from Bedfordshire Police were outside The Priory Church venue in the town to prevent the event, organised by Conservative South West Bedfordshire MP Andrew Selous, being disrupted.

Earlier in the day ‘The Little Veteran’ had carried out a peaceful protest in Dunstable.

Inside the building, a question and answer session was conducted by Dunstable mayor Liz Jones, with Mr Selous and Old Palace Lodge head of PR and marketing Viv Vayssieres replying from the platform.

Higher energy bills and rising interest rates have impacted the hotel, in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Although not represented on the panel, Central Bedfordshire Council’s chief executive Marcel Coiffait released a statement ahead of the proceedings “to provide more clarity over the arrangement secured by the hotel”.

It said: “A contract is in place on behalf of the Home Office between the Old Palace Lodge owners and Clearsprings Ready Homes Limited to provide around 150 beds of temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.

“The Home Office is required to do everything that’s practically possible to continue to meet its statutory obligation to house destitute asylum seekers.

“Given the volume of arrivals, that means it needs to source further initial contingency accommodation in hotels.

“Councils aren’t asked to support the use of sites, or offered any financial incentive to agree to locations being made available or given any money to help provide services.

“The only finance available is for schools, which receive the same per pupil funding as for any other child, irrespective of the likely special needs that asylum seeking children require such as language help.

“Councils are actively discouraged by the Home Office from publishing information about the sites or potential locations of asylum seekers. Old Palace Lodge will be used as contingency accommodation.

“This is supposed to house people for a short period while they undergo checks before being moved to a more permanent setting, which could be anywhere in the country.

“But there’s a huge backlog of demand for accommodation and processing, which means they could be there (Dunstable) for much longer in reality,” explained the statement.

“The Home Office and Clearsprings Ready Homes will provide the asylum seekers with food and clothing, as well as other essentials they may need. They’re allowed to leave the premises and use public services.

“An allowance of £9.10 per week is paid to them to cover any essentials not provided by the Home Office and its contractor.

“So far 91 asylum seekers have moved in, after being transferred from another hotel which was closing at the end of its contract.

“They’re all single adult males who’ve been in the UK for a while, so they’ll have NHS registration and essential items already.

“There’s security at the hotel and none of the residents have experienced any issues in the local area to date.”