Home Office considers disused care homes and student flats for migrant housing

The Home Office has been looking into whether it can use disused care homes and student flats to house migrants.

Potentially using care homes and student flats is being considered as part of a Government plan to slash the £5.5million bill to house migrants in hotel accommodation.

Government officials are now looking to find 800 new sites that are neither former military bases nor hotels – with the latter costing around £150 a night per migrant.

As of the beginning of October, about 35,000 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels, up from 29,000 at the end of June.

Under the Tories, hundreds of millions of pounds was being spent on mass accommodation sites, such as the Bibby Stockholm barge which was moored in Portland, Dorset.

However, a report from the financial watchdog National Audit Office (NAO) found that the now decanted barge did not represent a good value for money.

Still in use is the large former RAF base at Wethersfield in Essex, which currently houses around 540 migrants.

Concerns about spiralling costs means Whitehall officials have now been looking into replacing the costly military bases and hotels with disused care homes and empty student flats.

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A Home Office spokesman said: “We have inherited enormous pressures in the asylum system and remain absolutely committed to ending the use of hotels to ensure value for money.

“We have identified a range of sites that we are narrowing down to a handful of suitable properties that will enable us to exit hotels sooner.”

RAF Wethersfield was meant to be closed in July, along with Bibby Stockholm, though the ongoing surge in Channel crossings seems to have complicated this.

Ex-Home Secretary James Cleverly opposed the latest development in the RAF Wethersfield saga, citing the site’s remote location and inadequate infrastructure.

Cleverly, whose Braintree seat includes RAF Wethersfield, said: “Labour’s failure to stop the boats or smash the gangs shouldn’t be used as an excuse to cram people into Wethersfield.”

Tory veteran Priti Patel, who represents the neighbouring constituency of Witham, also voiced her objections.

She accused Starmer and his Home Secretary Yvette Cooper of “U-turning on the use of sites like Wethersfield and working behind the scenes to expand them, while growing the use of hotels”.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International opposed the use of such sites as being unfit for refugees.

Lou Calvey, director of the charity Asylum Matters, said: “News that government intends to open asylum accommodation in disused care homes and student blocks is deeply concerning.

“People should be accommodated in our communities with a clear, developed, support offer. Government need to be working with communities, investing in them, to ensure places of welcome. We would urge government to carefully consider its approach to accommodated hugely traumatised people who’ve been waiting on their asylum claims for years.”