Migrants barge plan 'won't end hotel use'

HOTELS will be used to house thousands of asylum seekers for the foreseeable future - despite plans to place them in former military bases and barges, ministers have admitted.

- Jonathan Walker

And at least one hotel has been "converted" so it can be used indefinitely.

There are currently 51,000 migrants in nearly 400 hotels across the country despite the Government previously insisting they were a "short-term solution".

But Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick admitted: "Due to the continued pressures on the asylum estate, we are needing to use emergency accommodation hotels for a longer period than originally envisaged."

He said the 170-year-old Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough, in the heart of the ancient cathedral city, had been converted "to longer-term contingency accommodation".

And Mr Jenrick added: "There is no plan to decant this site."