The leader of Southampton City Council, Cllr Alex Winning, is preparing a letter to Shabana Mahmood MP regarding ongoing concerns around the Highfield House Hotel in Portswood, which is currently being used by the Home Office to accommodate asylum seekers.
Details of the letter emerged during a full council meeting held on Wednesday, 26 November, where councillors debated protest activity outside the Highfield Lane site. The discussion focused on motions addressing the safety and wellbeing of those housed in the hotel, following reports of local protests and community unrest.
Astonishingly Green Party councillor Katherine Barbour, who represents the Portswood ward, raised the issue of asylum seekers’ safety at the meeting. “I think the letter that Cllr Winning has done to Shabana Mahmood to say about potentially moving the asylum seekers from there to somewhere where they hopefully would be safer, because I have talked to people who are staying there and they say to me ‘we don’t feel safe there’, is one option,” she told the chamber.
The Highfield House Hotel has been at the centre of controversy, with both ongoing protests and concerns voiced by asylum seekers themselves over their safety at the site.
This week, those concerns gained added urgency after police charged a man living on Highfield Lane with a series of alleged sexual assaults on women walking in Southampton. The individual, who is an asylum seeker, is set to appear in court following incidents in the Portswood and Bevois areas.
