Hotel rooms for migrants expanded in Westcountry

Exmouth to host asylum seekers as national concerns raised about diphtheria cases

AHOTEL in Exmouth will join others in the Westcountry in hosting an unspecified number of asylum seekers within the coming days.

East Devon District Council said it has been informed by the Home Office that an unnamed hotel in the town will be temporarily housing asylum seekers.

A number of hotels in the Westcountry are already being used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers, following a backlog of migration applications and the movement of migrants out of the crowded Manston processing centre in Kent. They include hotels in Torquay, Paignton, Exeter, Ilfracombe and Newquay.

According to East Devon District Council, asylum seekers will be arriving in Exmouth within the next few days. Their accommodation will be funded by the Home Office, the council confirmed, adding that it was not consulted on the decision.

A statement from the council said it will consider the best way to facilitate support needs for the visitors, in collaboration with its partner organisations including Devon County Council and NHS Devon.

Councillor Steve Gazzard, Exmouth Town Council’s chairman, said: “Exmouth extended an extremely warm welcome to

our Afghan families in 2021 and I hope the community will once again help these asylum seekers to feel safe, respected and understood as members of our diverse community.

“The town council will be working with its partners to support the new arrivals and more details will be provided on ways in which you can potentially help.”

Councillor Roger Croad, Devon County Council’s Cabinet member with responsibility for communities, said: “We are aware of the Home Office’s commissioning of the hotel, as short-term emergency accommodation for asylum seekers who are at the start of the asylum application process. This is one of many across the country that the Home Office is utilising for this purpose.

“We don’t know how long those placed here will remain in Devon, but we and our district, parish and town councils partners in Devon, and with excellent support from NHS Devon colleagues and the voluntary sector, are well placed to provide care and support to individuals.

We are extending our hand of welcome to those new arrivals, and with a duty of care, will do all we can to support them.”

NHS Devon’s chief medical officer, Dr Nigel Acheson, said: “The NHS in Devon has well-established processes in place to ensure our doctors and other health professionals can provide essential care to support very vulnerable people arriving in our country as refugees or asylum seekers.”

At one point, as many as 4,000 people were being detained at the Manston processing centre, which was designed to hold just 1,600, but last Tuesday Government sources said the site had been emptied, with migrants moved to hotels around the country. One recent arrival at Manston died on November 19 of suspected diptheria at the centre and others have contracted the infectious disease.

Yesterday, Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the dozens of asylum seekers who contracted diphtheria had the disease before arriving in the UK. He insisted the infections present an “extremely low risk” to the wider public despite migrants being moved from crowded facilities to hotels around the country.

Mr Harper told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “On the diphtheria issue, there’s extremely low risk to the wider community, that’s a disease which of course the vaccination for which is in the standard childhood vaccination package.

“We take the welfare of people in our care very seriously. My understanding is those cases were people who had that disease before they came to the United Kingdom.”

He said the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is working “very closely” with the NHS “to make sure we look after the people who have been identified with diphtheria to make sure they get the treatment and the care they need”.

Health officials believe the timings of testing and the onset of symptoms indicates all cases were caught abroad, but they could not rule out transmission in migrant centres.

As of November 10, the UKHSA had identified 39 diphtheria cases in asylum seekers in England in 2022, but the Press Association has been told that figure will today be revised to around 50. Public health experts have raised concerns about the spread of the contagious disease as people were moved from the facility to hotels.

According to The Sunday Times, Jim McManus, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, said: “It has created additional and preventable burdens on local health systems and has put both asylum seekers and potentially hotel workers at avoidable and preventable risk.”

Diphtheria is a highly contagious infection affecting the nose, throat and sometimes skin. The NHS says it is rare in the UK and can be treated with antibiotics and other medicines.

The UKHSA warned that accommodation settings should be considered “high-risk for infectious diseases”.

Dr Trish Mannes, UKHSA director for the South East, said: “In order to limit the risk of diphtheria being passed on within asylum seeker settings, UKHSA continues to recommend that individuals arriving at reception centres, and who have moved on recently, are offered a diphtheria vaccine and preventative treatment.”