City hotel could house 327 refugees

A HISTORIC Birmingham hotel could be used to house hundreds of asylum seekers over the next three years.

An application has been made for the Rowton Hotel, in Alcester Street, Highgate, to become home for 327 refugees at a time.

But the plans have been met with objections, with claims ‘carrier bags of excrement’ were thrown from windows when it was previously used as a refugee base. A council report said threats were also made to a female engineer who was working on a neighbouring site.

Up to January the hotel was used as contingency for asylum seekers, though it has been empty ever since.

The Rowton, formerly the Paragon Hotel, is a grade II-listed building constructed in 19031904 as the Rowton House

Hostel.

It was originally intended to provide temporary accommodation for men seeking jobs, and was converted into the Chamberlain Hotel in the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, Birmingham Airport is currently the UK’s main gateway for refugee planes out of Kabul.

The airport stepped in “at extremely short notice” to assist the government.

Passengers on one flight out of Kabul, understood to include refugee families and returning British nationals, were stranded on the tarmac for eight hours after landing this week, said Fahim Zazai, founder of the Afghan Community and Welfare Centre in Walsall.