Meet the seaside hoteliers who turned down £550,000 to house migrants trends now
The postbag at Hatters Hotel in the seaside resort of Skegness gets heavier by the day. It is brimming with letters sent by well-wishers from across Britain with messages such as 'I salute you'; 'Keep up your brave stance'; and 'Let's hope local people support you'.
This is all a surprise for owners Gary and Dee Allen, who this week fielded off film crews, including one from Canada, queuing up to ask why they had turned down — on a 'point of principle,' as they put it — nearly £550,000, which would have been a godsend for them and their three daughters, aged from six to 18.
In exchange for that money from taxpayers, the Government had asked the Allens to close their doors to guests and hand over the keys of their 21-bed hotel for the next year to provide housing for young male migrants.
'We could have shut up shop and gone away. Just banked the money of £10,000-plus a week,' says Dee, 35, who met 61-year-old Gary a decade ago when she worked for his taxi company in their home town of Nottingham.
Offer rejected: Hatters Hotel owners Gary and Dee Allen are pictured with some of their letters from well-wishers from across Britain who support their decision to decline the Government's £550,000 offer to house migrants in their establishment
Family resort: The town centre and wide beachfront at Skegness. Five hotels in the area have closed in order to house about 250 migrants
As they sit beside a roaring fire at their hotel, Gary adds: 'The neighbours would have hated us for it. The agent from the Home Office said all but one of the 15 full and part-time staff would have to be sacked. Where would they get work in a seaside resort out of season? How would we have lived with ourselves?
'We couldn't do it. The locals love coming here. We sold everything in Nottingham to buy this hotel. It was like 'God's waiting room' when we came here last year. The old carpets were held together with sticky tape. In the bar and restaurant area, there were only five single electric sockets.
'Yet the Home Office agent said they would take it like that. We would still get £136,000 every 13 weeks to stop our guest bookings for a year and give over the bedrooms to these foreign men.'
To be honest, Gary and Dee did give the mouth-watering deal some thought.
Who wouldn't? They bought the hotel last August, moving to Skegness to start work on turning the Crown Hotel into an Alice in Wonderland-themed boutique establishment.
Out of the blue, two months later, the phone rang with the initial offer from the Home Office. Gary and Dee said no.
A few weeks ago, as the number of migrants crossing the Channel climbed and the Government scrambled to put the new arrivals in hotels — now some 419 across the UK, with more picked up every day — the agent rang again to ask them to reconsider the deal.
They said no again and this time the news leaked out. Now they are a cause celebre in Skegness — a gentle resort much loved by visitors, particularly families and pensioners from all over the UK.
Five hotels here have closed in order to house about 250 migrants, most from Middle Eastern nations.
There is talk of the Government taking over more properties in Skegness, including a care home housing elderly dementia patients. Gary and Dee's Hatter's Hotel is pictured above
There is talk of the Government taking over more properties, including a care home housing elderly dementia patients, which is permanently shutting its business five days before Christmas. This has made locals twitchy. As Gary says: 'Skegness is a favourite for children who love the donkey rides, sandcastles and candy floss. It has always been a safe place to come on holiday.'
Near the promenade is an Arnold Palmer putting course, a bowling green well used by locals, and some slightly dishevelled gardens planted with winter pansies overlooking a leaden grey sea.
Even at this time of year, the coaches roll in, bringing pensioners for a cheap out-of-season break, decanting them and their mobility scooters at seafront hotels from as far away as Essex. Yet this scene of tranquillity has recently taken a knock.
Ten days ago, 400 Skegness residents called a high-decibel emergency public meeting in a centre near the seafront. There were screams of protest from some who begged local councillors and the area's Conservative MP Matt Warman to stop its hotels being turned over to migrants.
Tempers boiled over during the three-hour gathering as residents said the resort could be 'permanently damaged' if the trend was to continue. 'We don't know where they come from or why they want to be here,' was a common theme.
Hoteliers claimed bookings are already being cancelled for next year, because Skegness's image is being tarnished by the influx of young men wandering the seafront and going into the town centre.
At the meeting, there were chants of 'what a load of rubbish' as the Mayor Tony Tye tried to defend himself. It ended in disarray, when a woman stood up and said the people of Skegness were racist. This may seem like a bad case of nimbyism. But along Skegness promenade, there is already a strip of four hotels: the Grand, the Sun, the County and the Chatsworth, which have been requisitioned for migrants by the Home Office.
A fifth, The Leisure — beside the Pink Poodle dog-grooming parlour and opposite an Italian restaurant — is in a residential part of the resort, close to suburban semis and detached houses.
When the Mail visited Skegness last week, it was clear that locals suffering a cost-of-living crisis and soaring energy bills feel resentment that migrants are being offered free accommodation and care.
A few weeks ago, as the number of migrants crossing the Channel climbed and the Government scrambled to put the new arrivals in hotels. Migrants are pictured off the coast of Dover in August 2022
