City council leaders have made the case for the Home Office to cease the current use of Highfield House Hotel as a priority.
Protests have taken place outside the site in Highfield Lane, Portswood, on a weekly basis for several months.
This activity was discussed at a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny management committee on Thursday, January 22, which was focused on the community safety partnership.
Committee chair Cllr Richard Blackman asked what steps the council had taken to raise the issue beyond Southampton.
Cllr Blackman, Liberal Democrat, said: “The solution to this issue rests with the government, with the Home Office.
“Could you give us an indication of what contacts are happening at that level because ultimately a solution to this is not wholly within the gift of just in Southampton?”
Cllr Toqeer Kataria, Labour cabinet member for leisure and communities, said the government had a plan to move asylum seekers from hotels to a different type of accommodation.
He said the council had engaged with the city’s MPs to make representations to ministers so the city was on a list to speed up the process in light of the weekly protests, which use up police and local authority resources.
Cllr Alex Winning, leader of the council, had also communicated directly with the government, the committee heard.
Cllr Kataria added: “You also need to look at the safety of the migrants within the hotels as well.
“I am sure anyone, wherever they are living, if you walk outside and you have got protests happening, maybe they are not feeling safe as well the way things are.
“When you look at safety in the city, it is for everyone that is here.
“The residents, the migrants that are here, the visitors, whoever it might be, looking at safety for everyone.”
Conservative councillor Steve Galton asked if any timeframe had been given by the government.
He said an alternative request could be for a different hotel to be used to give a break to the residential area around Highfield House Hotel.
Cllr Galton said: “Everybody has the right to protest but there has got to become a point.
“If this was outside your house, my house, how long can those protests go on causing significant disruption in although it is a public space, it isn’t what we would view as an acceptable place for a regular disturbance like that.”
Cllr Kataria said: “I don’t think we have received any timeframe as of yet but they have the message, they know what we want and we want to be put up on the priority list because of the reasons we are discussing now.”