A furious council has discovered hundreds of asylum seekers were shipped into its city despite telling the Home Office it could not take any more.
Portsmouth City Council found that 55 private rental properties were being used to house a minimum of three asylum seekers each last week.
The migrants have been staying in homes of multiple occupation (HMO) – not council housing.
It comes just two years after James Hill, Portsmouth’s director of housing, told the Home Office that the ‘system’s capacity was such that we couldn’t support additional asylum seekers’.
But when a public meeting was hosted in July by Amanda Martin, the Labour MP for Portsmouth North, figures showed the number of private rentals being used to house migrants had increased from 10 at the end of 2019 to 58 in April 2024, The Times first reported.
The council confirmed with the Home Office last week that the number is now at 55, according to the newspaper.
The data was uncovered by Ms Martin after Clearsprings Ready Homes wrote to a parliamentary committee this year amid an inquiry into accommodation for asylum seekers.
Portsmouth City Council said it was never notified about the use of the properties to house migrants.
When a public meeting was hosted in July by Amanda Martin (left), the Labour MP for Portsmouth North, figures showed the number of private rentals being used to house migrants had increased from 10 at the end of 2019 to 58 in April 2024
Groups of protestors clash outside the Royal Beach Hotel in Southsea, Portsmouth, last month
In Portsmouth, more than 40 anti–immigration demonstrators confronted almost 30 activists holding Stand Up to Racism placards outside the Royal Beach Hotel last month
A spokesperson said: ‘We were previously not aware of the number of properties being used in the city.
‘We have made it clear that the processes [the Home Office] has are not adequate and they should be formally notifying a senior officer.’
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘We are continuing to expand the use of dispersal accommodation as part of our strategy to reduce reliance on costly hotels and deliver a more sustainable and cost-effective asylum system.
‘This approach is being implemented in close consultation with local authorities across the UK to ensure dispersal is balanced and community needs and concerns are taken into account.
‘This Government inherited an asylum system in chaos, with tens of thousands of asylum seekers stuck in the backlog being housed by the taxpayer. At its peak, less than two years ago, there were 400 asylum hotels in use at a cost of almost £9million a day.
‘We have taken urgent action to fix the system – more than doubling asylum decisions and cutting the backlog by 41 per cent.
‘The cost of asylum hotels was reduced by almost a billion pounds in 2024/25 compared to the previous year, and we have put in place the major reforms which will allow us to end the use of asylum hotels entirely by the end of this Parliament.’
The news comes amid nationwide protests against the housing of illegal immigrants.
Last month, demonstrations escalated with tense stand–offs in cities including Portsmouth.
More than 40 anti–immigration demonstrators confronted almost 30 activists holding Stand Up to Racism placards outside the Royal Beach Hotel. Some on the anti–immigration side hung a banner which said ‘protect our children’ outside the hotel.
Hundreds of Scots descended on a hotel accommodating migrants in Falkirk on Saturday
A large police presence separated two rival protests from those opposed to the asylum hotel and anti-racist demonstrators in Falkirk yesterday
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced mounting pressure over the issue last night after 700 people were involved in angry clashes outside a migrant hotel in a Scots town
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced mounting pressure over the issue last night after 700 people were involved in angry clashes outside a migrant hotel in a Scots town.
Police had to call in reinforcements as local residents and anti-racism groups clashed in angry scenes that saw bottles and other objects thrown outside the hotel in Falkirk which can hold more than 50 asylum seekers.
Community tensions had reached fever pitch after Afghan asylum seeker Sadeq Nikzad, 29, – a former resident in the hotel – was jailed in June for raping a local 15-year-old schoolgirl.
Yesterday, one of Sir Keir’s own Labour MPs said he believed that migrants should be removed from Falkirk’s Cladhan Hotel.
Euan Stainbank, the MP for Falkirk, said: ‘These hotels don’t work for host communities or those who stay there and their use will be ended by this government.’