Number in ‘asylum hotels’ rises

THE number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels has risen by 13% in three months, new figures show.

- AINE FOX

There were 36,273 people staying in such accommodation at the end of September, while they were awaiting a decision on their asylum claims.

Bristol is the UK local authority hosting the fifth most people in such circumstances - 982.

That puts it only behind Manchester, Birmingham and the London boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon.

The issue has come to the fore in recent times with protests outside hotels.

The West's biggest city is taking a far greater share than cities of a comparable size - with Cardiff, for instance, taking little more than a tenth of the number (99).

According to the figures Bristol hotels are home to more asylum seekers awaiting decisions than Edinburgh (174), Sheffield (269), Glasgow (0), Belfast (0), Nottingham (237), Cardiff (99) and Coventry (149) combined.

Bristol's total also exceeds the combined figure for larger cities Liverpool (482) and Leeds (472).

Last month, the Government announced that two barracks in Scotland and southern England would be used to house around 900 men temporarily, as part of government efforts to stop using hotels to temporarily house asylum seekers.