The men’s team moved into the historic hotel at Station Approach on Friday night. It is understood the group of ‘single men’ arrived at the 41-bedroom hotel in two coaches late at night. Their arrival came hours after Peterborough City Council chief executive Matt Gladstone announced he had been told by the Home Office that the hotel was to be used as part of asylum seeker dispersal arrangements. He had warned that this could happen as early as this weekend. It is understood the council has already “served papers” on the hotel as it seeks enforcement action against an “unsuitable space for asylum seekers”. Peterborough MP Paul Bristow announced on Twitter that: “last night (Friday) – 80 single men were placed in the Great Northern Hotel. The Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough. He added: “Peterborough is welcoming refugees – but something very different is happening with small boat crossings and the use of quite smart hotels in town and city center locations. He stated: “Ironically, I warned about this in Parliament last week. “It would be helpful if Labor and the Lib Dems would stop shouting ‘racist’ at me and work with me, the City Council, the police and others to show why using this hotel in this way is so inappropriate.” In a separate tweet, he said: “This is a historic hotel in the city centre. It’s a wrong choice. “I oppose it and will do everything I can to make sure it’s a hotel again.” A council spokesman said on Friday: “We have taken enforcement action today to prevent the Great Northern Hotel from being changed to allow it to be used for further asylum seekers, not least because our own resources to welcome and help genuine asylum seekers are stretched to the absolute limit, but because of the risks to the strategic infrastructure of our city and the UK.” Jenni Halliday, Serco’s Contract Manager for Asylum Accommodation Services, which is responsible for providing accommodation in the region, said: “With significant increases in the number of people arriving in the UK, we have no alternative but to host temporarily some asylum seekers in hotels. “These hotels are only used as a last resort, but as an accommodation service provider on behalf of the Home Office we have a responsibility to find accommodation for asylum seekers in our care. “The Serco team are working extremely hard to move people into scattered social housing as quickly as possible.” A question mark has been hanging over the hotel for the last few weeks. Repeated requests to the businessman, Michael Chittenden, who is listed as a “person with significant control” of the Great Northern Hotel in documents filed at Companies House, for a response to concerns about the hotel were not answered. read more Peterborough’s Great Northern Hotel will likely be used to house asylum seekers
