Restaurant closes claiming safety concerns linked to migrant hotel

A Southampton restaurant has claimed its closure is as a result of a nearby migrant hotel.

On a message on Instagram posted on Monday (5 January), Ceno stated it had closed “due to ongoing issues connected with the Highfield hotel in which we are located, which has now become home to over 100 illegal immigrants”.

It went on to say that its customers have been unable to access the restaurant’s car park due to a “locked car park” which it claims has been secured because of damage done by the hotel’s residents. The post stated that “there has been no meaningful support” from local services including police and its local council.

The owners shared its closure was not a financial one but rather for the “wellbeing, safety and care” of its staff and customers.

Hundreds of hotels up and down the country have been used to house asylum seekers under both the Conservative and Labour governments.

Last summer, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to ending the “costly use of hotels to seek asylum seekers” and stated that by bringing an end to the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029 will save the taxpayer £1b a year.