Home Office ends asylum seeker contract with Epping Forest hotel

The Bell Hotel in Epping Forest will no longer be housing Asylum Seekers after the Home Office terminated its contract

The Home Office is to find new accommodation for a group of asylum seekers after ending its contract with a hotel.

Single men seeking refuge have been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping Forest, Essex, for several years.

However, the government said the arrangement will cease by the end of April.

Dame Eleanor Laing, Conservative MP for Epping Forest, said she "welcomes this news".

"I am reassured that the people who are currently living at the Bell Hotel, who have been supported by local residents, in particular by church groups, will have their welfare needs taken care of when they move to a different place," she added.

The Home Office said using hotels as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers was a short-term measure.

In a letter sent to Dame Eleanor, Tom Pursglove, the minister for legal migration and the border, said: "Utilising hotels for asylum accommodation takes valuable assets away from communities, places pressures on local public services and imposes an unacceptable cost on the British taxpayer.

"Through the improvements we have made to our system, we are now able to begin the next phase of hotel exits and to stop the procurement of new asylum hotels."

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Mr Pursglove claimed the Home Office had brought forward "more appropriate forms of asylum accommodation, including large disused military sites and The Bibby Stockholm, which are less costly to the taxpayer and can be better managed by communities."

He added: "Residents currently accommodated in the hotel will be moving to other parts of our asylum estate and we aim to complete all relocations in advance of the final closure date.

"Residents will be notified a minimum of five days in advance and moved by the Home Office in line with our existing published policies."

Last month, the charity Care4Calais said it would take High Court legal action against the Home Office over the use of the former RAF site at Wethersfield as asylum accommodation, claiming it did not meet legally required standards and was "prison-like".