The leader of Trafford Council has issued a statement confirming that the Cresta Hotel in Altrincham is to be used as a temporary venue for housing asylum seekers
Staff were informed earlier this week that the 148 room hotel was to close immediately for a period of twelve months amid speculation that it would be used for housing asylum seekers
This afternoon council leader Tom Ross confirmed that was indeed the case in a statement that the decision was made by the Home Office and not the Council.
Trafford he said “has a proud history of being a diverse, tolerant, and welcoming borough and we are dedicated to maintaining these values while addressing practical concerns, including healthcare and safeguarding.”
saying that the council are working closely with the Home Office, Serco, local health services, the police, and our community organisations to support our residents and the individuals seeking refuge here.
He added that
“We will continue to advocate for more permanent solutions to the challenges of housing and asylum processing and will keep you informed as soon as more information becomes available.”
Altrincham and Sale MP Connor Rand has written to the minister responsible asking that the claimants can be processed as soon as possible
In a statement he said that
I am proud to represent a constituency as diverse and tolerant as Altrincham and Sale West. However, I understand that there will be residents who have concerns about the private agreement reached between Serco and the hotel’s owners to temporarily house asylum seekers in Cresta Court Hotel.
I have today written to the Minister responsible for asylum to ask what steps they are taking to process these claims quickly and to ask what support the Government will be providing to our community to deal with any increased demand on local services that this decision will bring. I will update residents when I receive a response.
As residents will know, this is not the first time a hotel in our community has needed to be used for this purpose. This is a result of the huge backlog that has developed in our asylum system over the last 14 years, with the number of asylum seekers waiting for a decision on their claim increasing from 19,000 to almost 119,000.
This Government is committed to a fair and controlled asylum system and work is underway to hire the caseworkers needed to clear the asylum backlog, end the use of asylum hotels and fix the broken asylum system we inherited, but this will take time.
In the meantime, I will push the Home Office to get the claims of those in the Cresta Court Hotel processed as quickly as possible, so this situation can be resolved.
