It is distressing to read (Report, February 27) that nearly half of the remaining aid budget, after its misguided reduction by Sir Keir Starmer, is being spent on hotels for asylum seekers. As countries formerly receiving aid from both the US and the UK become unable to support their populations, we can expect to see more asylum seekers arriving at our borders.
Surely, rather than housing them in hotels, it would be a cost-effective investment to build prefabricated houses on redundant airfields or other such brownfield sites. This was one solution to homelessness after the second world war, and since then great improvements have been made in the design and construction of such homes.
Apart from it being more congenial and less isolating for their occupants, the advantage of this plan would be that, unlike hotels, such buildings can be used many times without further cost. These “temporary” villages could include a shop, a canteen and other amenities, as well as offices where asylum claims could be examined and decided. If numbers fell, the prefabs could be easily dismantled and moved to areas where they could be used to resolve temporary housing shortages, thus saving local councils the cost of housing families in bed and breakfasts.
Meanwhile, the aid budget, which is crucially necessary to help poorer countries through the green transition, could be restored, and with it Britain’s reputation as a generous and far-sighted world power.
Elizabeth Mortimer
Burford, Oxfordshire, UK