Leader to ask councils for list of asylum hotels

Linden Kemkaran says she wants to support district and borough councils in Kent

The leader of Kent County Council says she is writing to every district and borough council in the county to ask them for a list of hotels housing asylum seekers.

The county council's Reform UK leader Linden Kemkaran told BBC Radio Kent she was also going to ask which hotels were planned to be used in the future.

Kemkaran said she had written to the Home Office as well to encourage them to be "more transparent" with the information.

Border Security Minister Dame Angela Eagle said: "We will continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns. Our work continues to close all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament."

Kemkaran has also asked Kent councils to consider taking legal action "in the same way that Epping did".

Asylum seekers are due to be removed from a hotel in Essex after Epping Forest District Council was granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking them from being housed there.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said all councils controlled by the party would "do everything in their power to follow Epping's lead".

However, Kemkaran highlighted the Epping ruling was an interim judgement that would go to appeal.

She acknowledged planning and housing decisions were not county council matters, but wanted to "support" the district and borough councils in Kent.

"For nearly a decade now, Kent has been on the frontline of the migrant crisis," she told PA Media.

"The government's lack of a plan to deal with it successfully is putting an unreasonable and unsustainable strain on our already vastly overstretched public services."

The KCC leader has encouraged the government to "start deporting people who come here illegally".

The Home Office said since taking office, the government had returned more than 35,000 people with no right to be in the country.

Kay Marsh, from migrant charity Samphire, said: "I think before you even consider bringing legal action on such a thing you need to have a solid legal plan of where you're going to house these people, otherwise we're just going to see a boom in homelessness."

She told BBC Radio Kent a "solid back-up plan" was needed.

"The majority of these people are innocent and they just want a quiet life, and it's not fair to tar them all with the same brush," she added.