A HOTEL in a luxurious Wiltshire leisure complex has been fully booked up to accommodate asylum seekers.

North Wiltshire MP James Gray has hit out at the government’s plan to keep space available in The Wiltshire Hotel in a leisure and retirement village near Royal Wootton Bassett just in case up to 82 migrants urgently need places to stay in the short term after arriving on British shores.

He cites an email from the Home Office which said: “This year we face record levels of asylum seekers arriving illegally in small boats.

“This has placed significant pressure on our accommodation – which we are legally required to provide to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute – whilst we consider their claim for international protection.”

Mr Gray has written to Home Secretary Suella Braverman to voice his opposition to her department’s decision.

He said: “The Wiltshire Hotel is in my view entirely unsuitable as a potential migrant housing site due to its very rural location and because it is primarily used for leisure activities such as golf.

“If there is any way a better site in a more central location could be found, I would be grateful.

“In the meantime, please register my strongest possible opposition to this plan.”

The Home Office’s general policy is not to identify sites it is using to accommodate asylum seekers in the UK, though Mr Gray’s comments made publicly and in his regular weekly column for the Adver have flouted that rule.

He added: “Why should we house these fit young men from a perfectly safe European nation who have illegally migrated here not for political asylum but to find a better life for themselves?

“I very much welcome the package of measures which the PM announced on Monday designed to return them forthwith to where they came from. The Wiltshire Hotel is quite the wrong place for them.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain.

“The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable – there are currently more than 37,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £5.6 million a day.

“The use of hotels is a temporary solution, and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.”