No action has been taken on the possibility of evicting asylum seekers staying at hotels in Reading.
The prospect of closing hotels to asylum seekers has emerged after Epping Forest District Council secured an interim injunction to close The Bell Hotel in Epping on Tuesday, August 19.
This prompted at least 17 councils to either seek similar injunctions or consider legal action.
When asked whether Reading Borough Council would take action to close asylum seeker hotels in the town, a spokesperson simply replied that no action would be taken.
The interim injunction closing the hotel as a place to house asylum seekers was overturned in a Court of Appeal ruling last Friday (August 29).
A permanent injunction on whether the use of The Bell Hotel to house asylum seekers is legal or not is due to be made at a High Court Trial next month.
The George Hotel in Reading has been suspected of housing asylum seekers since 2020.
Furthermore, the Ibis Styles in Oxford Road was closed and ‘taken over by the government’ in July 2021.
Both have been visited by ‘auditors’ and self-described ‘citizen journalists’ who have documented the use of hotels as places for asylum seekers to stay while their claims are being decided by the Home Office.
The George Hotel was visited by DJE Media in July, a YouTuber with 224k subscribers.
There is a distinction between people who arrive in Great Britain through legal routes, such as those who have arrived from Hong Kong, Ukraine and Afghanistan, and those who arrive unannounced.
The government created a visa pathway for Hong Kongers with British National Overseas status to come to the UK in January 2021, a series of Afghan resettlement schemes that began in April 2021 and the Homes for Ukraine scheme in March 2022.
However, those who arrive outside of these programmes and unannounced have to make an asylum claim.
Arrivals via small boats and people smuggling gangs fall into this category.
Reading has been designated as a ‘City of Sanctuary’ since 2015.
The current mayor, councillor Alice Mpofu-Coles (Labour, Whitley), arrived in the town as a refugee from Zimbabwe in the early 2000s.
Refugees in Berkshire are supported by the Refugee Support Group based at the Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC) in London Street.
Matt Rodda, the Labour MP for Reading Central, Olivia Bailey, the Labour MP for Reading West and Mid Berkshire and Yuan Yang, the Labour MP for Earley and Woodley, have been asked about the impact on local services and public safety, but no response has been received.
Earlier in the year, Ms Yang said the government is speeding up work to process asylum applications and “put a stop to hotel use.”
According to fact-checking website Full Fact, the number of hotels used to house asylum seekers went down by three, from 213 in July 2024 to 210 this August.
