Asylum seekers to be housed in newly built council homes in push to end use of hotels

The pilot scheme would see £100million in additional funding for the building of new properties or for the refurbishment of old, derelict buildings in order to house asylum seekers.

Some council bosses are said to be keen on "renationalising" asylum accommodation, rather than private contractors, and welcome the prospect of adding more properties to their portfolio.

But the decision is expected to be met with fury by those who feel extra money spent on social housing should be for local residents.

Last year, 1.33million people were on a waiting list for social housing in England - the highest number since 2014.

20,560 social homes were lost in 2023/2024, primarily through Right to Buy sales and demolitions, while England is expected to sell off eight times as many council homes in 2025/26 as were built in the previous year.

In London, only about five per cent of those on the waiting list have any chance of being rehoused, according to a City Hall inquiry, and in some boroughs, the average wait for a family home is up to 15 years.

The new scheme would allow councils to buy more properties, such as new housing developments where homes are struggling to sell, for asylum seeker accommodation.

Properties would then be leased to the Home Office, and eventually added to the council's social housing stock with the view of saving money in the long term.

There are currently 36,000 asylum seekers in hotels and around 71,000 accommodated in the private rented sector - a total of over 100,000.

Due to a huge surge in anti-immigration protests across the country, Labour have pledged to abolish the use of hotels as asylum accommodation.

"I want to close those [asylum] hotels as quickly as possible," Sir Keir Starmer told GB News last month.

"We need to get the number down. I'm determined to close all migrant hotels."

The Government initially turned to army barracks, with two sites set to open in Crowborough, East Sussex, and in Inverness. A total of 900 migrants are set to be housed across both locations.

But with over 100,000 migrants the Home Office is responsible for, it is local authorities who want to take on some of the job.

Some £100million has been set aside either build new housing or restore empty properties - the figures suggest this would be enough to build 900 homes.

With an estimated 200 councils interested in the scheme, Bella Sankey, leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, told The i Paper that the current asylum housing system was "inefficient" in allowing taxpayers’ money to be "creamed off for handsome profits by private companies".

"Owning more of our own housing, housing that can be used much more flexibly in future, would be a win-win," she told the paper.

"It would be far better to invest in local authorities to build or buy stock, rather than money going out of the door to private contractors, private landlords, to hotels.

"I think that over time this could replace entirely the need for private contractors to have any role in the system. Each local authority could be asked to step up and do their bit."

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