Taxpayers Foot £7 Million Bill for Empty Asylum Flats
Student flats in Huddersfield, leased by the Home Office for £7 million to house asylum seekers, have stood empty for over a year – leaving taxpayers to shoulder millions in wasted rent. The Telegraph has the story.
The blocks were built in 2019 for Huddersfield University students and feature “spacious” studio bedrooms, dining rooms, kitchens and a gym, but have never been used.
They were leased for an estimated £7 million in spring 2024 by the Tory government to provide a cheaper alternative to hotels for asylum seekers. However, they are still empty with no final decision on when migrants might be moved in.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has pledged to axe the use of hotels for asylum seekers by the end of the Parliament in four years’ time.
At the end of March 2025, there were more than 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels, costing up to £6 million a day, out of a total government bill for asylum accommodation and support of £3.6 billion for the current year.
It is understood negotiations are underway between the Home Office and local council officials to place asylum seekers in the blocks, but a source familiar with the talks said a decision on moving them in was “months away”.
It is part of attempts by Labour to use alternative “mid-sized” sites, including empty tower blocks, former student accommodation or vacant college buildings as an alternative to hotels.
The new strategic partnerships would see accommodation either owned by councils and leased to the Government for asylum use or secured by the Government and leased to local authorities. …
The Home Office earmarked £358 million to use the Huddersfield blocks until 2034, according to the National Audit Office, which had access to internal data. This included running costs of £24.7 million a year and £7.1 million for “site acquisition, lease and set up” in 2024/25.
Worth reading in full.
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It is beautiful baby. All of the pleasant well-heeled international students replaced by the lumpenproletariat and criminal classes of the poorest countries in the world. You don’t have to crunch statistics just take a walk down your high street. A big strand in the British mythos is to use the race to the bottom in order to win a game of last man standing.
When do you reach the point when you let your mind melt? That is to say that you reject every reassuring cornerstone of your existence in order to truly embrace reality. St John of the Cross called this the long dark night of the soul (I strongly nrecommend that you read it). There is a second stage to the journey called the long dark night of the spirit. This is a dreadful confrontation where the whole categories of your mind are removed. It isn’t much talked about because it is a profound state. Our times do call for the following of this path.
Huh? You ok Jabby?
i was just going to ask
Asylum Seekers !! they are in fact “Illegal Immigrants” Raising this point will soon have Porridge Consequences.
If the British government ceased all provision of flats and hotels for these migrants, and they literally only provided tents like in France, I wonder how quickly and by how much you’d see the number of invaders drop. Clearly the reason they come is because they have a much sweeter deal in the UK than where they’re leaving from in France, so just do the obvious and quit making it so cushy and attractive for them. This is a complete no-brainer, but also provides evidence that the government have zero intention of stopping the boats. I mean, a tent or a room at the Mercure…what a toughie. They’ll risk the Channel crossing because they know they get the goods at the other end.
I’ve been saying for ages, and especially now we are in the pleasant summer months, a tented village in the middle of a remote army training ground, surrounded by some nice razor wire and minimal rations. They can earn their keep by constructing more weather proof accommodation for the winter, if they are still keen to remain. Any who don’t can still do a couple of weeks construction to earn their airfare home.
When spending other people’s money it’s so easy to squander it all. I would be interested to take a deeper dive, to learn who owns these buildings, what the original agreement with the Uni was, and where that ‘ £7.1 million for “site acquisition, lease and set up” in 2024/25 ‘ went – to who.
Way 4 of Milton Friedman’s “only 4 ways to spend money” in action.
Presumably the govt keeps quite lot of hotels/hostels/etc empty in readiness for the next boatload?