Jagger hotel is asylum 'prison'

A SEAFRONT hotel once so glamorous it hosted Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall’s wedding reception is to become a holding centre for failed asylum seekers.

WEDDING PARTY Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall WEDDING PARTY: Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall

The decision to turn the Nayland Rock Hotel into what is effectively an open prison has outraged the local MP and councillors in Margate, Kent.

The Home Office plans for the imposing, Victorian listed building have been exposed just as the town, once one of the most popular holiday destinations in Britain, is spending tens of millions trying to revamp its image.

A £17.5million Turner Art Gallery – named after the artist JMW Turner, a regular visitor to the resort will be built nearby on the seafront over the next two years.

Council leader Sandy Ezekiel said: “It’s certainly not within our planning policy to have a prison on Margate seafront. Any plan of this kind could scare off potential investors.”

Once the Nayland Rock was a top attraction, luring tourists and stars. It was renowned for its ornate dining rooms and fabulous landscaped gardens overlooking the Channel.

Charlie Chaplin visited in the 1920s, just as his career in Hollywood was taking off; Jagger held his wedding reception there in 1990 and his parents also held their golden ­wedding celebrations there.

But since 2001 the former five-star hotel’s 200 beds have been used mainly for housing newly arrived refugees.

Its owner, Greek cypriot Panagiotis Stavrou, charges the Government around £350 a week per person for their

keep. There can be up to five people sharing a room.

Thanet Council had planned to re­store the hotel – the “jewel of Thanet”– to its ­former glory. Then it learnt that the Government had done a backdoor deal to “upgrade” the building’s status.

Instead of being a staging post for new arrivals, it will effectively become an open prison for failed asylum applicants awaiting deportation.

Thanet North Tory MP Roger Gale described the decision as “disgusting” and has vowed to fight it. He said security would be at a minimum and there would be nothing to stop people “legging it at the first opportunity”.

He said: “We are tired of having the social problems of London and Greater London dumped on us.

“The Nayland Rock has a key role to play in the future of our town. It must not become a detention centre. The ­situation is a nonsense.

“The Home Office has been negotiating for eight months and said it was going to make a statement this month.

“It’s disgusting that it didn’t see fit to consult the council chief executive, the local council leader or myself because we would have said: ‘Thanks but no thanks – we’ve done enough’.”

Mr Gale said the “social services industry” had slowly taken over Margate seafront and that the large payments from central government and London boroughs to landlords who took in asylum seekers and DSS claimants meant that ordinary holidaymakers were being priced out.

Margate has been forced to accept a  large number of refugees in recent years - with the estimates ranging from 3,000 to 5,000.

Julie Larner of the charity Migrant Helpline, which manages the Nayland Rock, said the hotel would be a last stop before removal so families placed there would not stay long.

"There wouldn't be an incentive for families to abscond because they have clear instructions to leave," she said.

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