Home Office ditches plans to house asylum seekers at Pontins holiday park

The government has abandoned its plans to house asylum seekers in a Pontins holiday park in Merseyside.

Located just outside Southport, the facility was reportedly being assessed by the Home Office as an alternative to housing asylum seekers in hotels whilst waiting for their claims to be assessed.

“We have been informed that the Home Office no longer wishes to pursue plans to house asylum seekers at the Pontins site in Ainsdale. We are awaiting written confirmation of this decision”, a spokesperson from Sefton Council told the BBC.

Ministers are searching for sites that could replace the costly use of hotels as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers, which are costing the government £6.8m per day.

Sefton Council said it was approached by the Home Office in late 2022 about the possibility of using the Pontins park, which remains in operation as a holiday resort.

The Home Office has refused to comment on any individual site. Sefton Council and the Conservative MP for Southport Damien Moore have previously opposed converting the resort into asylum accommodation.

They raised a number of objections to the plans, including logistical concerns over access to the site and the impact on the local tourism industry.

“The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels due to the unacceptable rise in small boat arrivals and our commitment to accommodate those from Afghanistan,” a Home Office spokesperson told the BBC.

“We, therefore, continue to look at all available options to source appropriate and cost-effective temporary accommodation.”

Meanwhile, the immigration minister Robert Jenrick continues to search for larger alternative sites, including former university accommodation and surplus military sites.

In April 2022, a Home Office report into the controversial use of Napier Barracks as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers concluded that it had “failed to address the fundamental problems at the site”. The government has since been in turmoil over its approach to housing asylum seekers.

A High Court judgment remarked that this solution was inadequate following allegations of poor conditions after numerous inspections from February 2021 onwards. Mr Justice Linden described the barracks’ status as “squalid”, noting concerning issues with overcrowding, ventilation and fire safety.

Following the decision, a plan to house up to 1500 male asylum seekers at a former RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse, north Yorkshire, was abandoned in August 2022. Since then, no other stable plans have been announced.

Last week, the Home Office published details of a £70m contract to place asylum seekers in accommodation centres. It aims to run a “mini-competition” in June 2023 for the contract to design, build or renovate new accommodation.