Hotel that grew on back of influx is now in stand-off with council
DUNCHURCH Park Hotel used to market itself as an “idyllic and romantic setting” for weddings. A Grade II Regency lodge set in 72 acres of manicured gardens, its website included instructions for arriving by helicopter.
Now it’s home to dozens of migrant families and the owners are in a planning battle to set up 40 wooden cabins to house more in a symbol of the UK’s floundering refugee policy.
The hotel, outside Rugby in Warwickshire, has housed migrants since September 2021, cancelling multiple weddings and bookings as it temporarily shifted to a new business model.
The owners saw a government contract as a “short-term solution” to “provide a firm foundation upon which to build a post-Covid recovery”.
“Encouraged” by its success, the hotel bought the cabins hoping to temporarily expand its ability to house migrants. However, the management mistakenly believed, it claims, that it did not need planning permission.
A retroactive application was rejected by Rugby town council on Wednesday, amid multiple objections, including from Jeremy Wright, the local MP, and Historic England.
The hotel owners, however, may yet appeal. Rows of wooden huts can now be seen lining the car park. The residents of the hotel are stuck in limbo. One couple said they had been in Dunchurch for seven months, granted the right to stay, but waiting to be re-homed and to be given ID cards. Other families had been there for a full year.
“I have two daughters and so it’s been four of us in one room for seven months,” the wife said. “The bathrooms are shared with 30 people, so it’s really hard to use them,” her husband added.
The family had travelled to the UK from northern Iraq, reaching France hidden in a lorry before crossing by boat. They said that they came to England because they believed there was less chance of deportation.
Asylum seekers are not legally allowed to work in the UK and so the residents spend their days wandering the local countryside, watching films in the hotel projector room and playing pool. Regardless of last week’s ruling, many residents expected the huts to get permission eventually.
Tom Costello, a Dunchurch resident, said: “That’s a practical solution to the problem. And no matter how much you get angry about it, you won’t stop it from happening, so why delay it?”