Home Office confirms Peterborough's Great Northern Hotel will cease to be asylum seekers' refuge next February

Peterborough’s Great Northern Hotel will not cease to be a refuge for asylum seekers until the end of February next year, it has been revealed.

The Home Office has confirmed in writing to Peterborough City Council it is to bring the year long use of the 171-year-old hotel, in Station Approach, as asylum accommodation to an end.

But it says that use will only cease when its contract with the hotel expires at the end of February.

Eighty male asylum seekers were moved into the hotel in November last year prompting criticism from Peterborough MP Paul Bristow and the council, claiming it was an inappropriate use of the hotel.

The decision to end the use of the 41-bedroom hotel as a refuge was announced in the House of Commons by Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick who said the process would start in a few days and conclude by the end of January.

In the letter confirming the decision, the Home Office states: “Utilising hotels for asylum accommodation takes valuable assets away from communities, places pressures on local public services and impose an unacceptable cost on the British taxpayer.

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

“I am therefore pleased to inform you that the Home Office is now terminating the contract with Great Northern Hotel as asylum accommodation and it will cease being used by the end of February 2024, reflecting the contractual notice period on this property.”

It adds: “Residents currently accommodated in the hotel will be moving to other parts of our asylum estate.

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

The Home Office also says that extra resources will be found to help reduce any disruption.”

It states: “The Home Office has always been clear the use of hotels was a short-term measure to ensure that we meet our statutory obligation to accommodate asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute during a period of unprecedented numbers of small boat arrivals.