Last Resort!

Channel migrants could be put up at a Pontins holiday camp in a bid to cut taxpayers’ £6 million a day hotel bill for small boat arrivals.

The Home Office is in negotiations to hire an 820-chalet camp at Camber Sands in East Sussex.

Pontins offers budget holidays at the camp, which was purpose-built in 1968 just steps away from a five-mile-long Blue Flag beach.

The 32-acre site is an hour’s drive from Dover, where most migrants disembark from northern France, and a government source said it’s one of the options under review.

Alternative sites being discussed include disused student housing and Ministry of Defence properties, it’s understood. However, sources repudiated reports that there would be numerous holiday campsites ready to go as early as next month.

Accommodation at the Camber Sands base is in two-storey chalet blocks which sleep four to six people, plus separate bungalows.

It’s not known how many migrants could be accommodated at the camp, but if each bedroom is used for single occupancy, it could be between 1,000 and 1,600. Each chalet offers a bathroom, kitchenette and dining space.

Facilities at Camber Sands include a restaurant and an on-site pub, although these are likely to be closed if the centre is used for migrant housing. The Pontins chain was bought out of administration by Britannia Hotels in 2011 for approximately £20 million.

It comes after 555 migrants arrived in Britain over the weekend despite the sub-zero conditions. The total number to have arrived in small vessels since the beginning of the year is now 44,867, compared with 28,526 in the entirety of the last year.

Last week Home Secretary Suella Braverman promised to take extreme action to tackle the Channel crisis, after securing an agreement with European nations for a wide-ranging crackdown.

She heralded a really positive step forward after meeting European Union counterparts last Thursday and agreeing to closer work between the United Kingdom and the bloc’s agency, Frontex.

The ministers also signalled more stringent activity on social media goliaths which permit people traffickers to advertise on their platforms, and in another significant development, they demonstrated support for an EU-wide migration agreement, a move which was blocked during Brexit negotiations.

It could unlock the door to Britain taking part in a deal to return asylum seekers to the Continent.

Suella Braverman has pledged a dramatic shake-up of Britain’s asylum and modern slavery laws, amid concern they’re being manipulated by Channel migrants, and the Home Secretary said last week that the way she saw it was that they require extreme action, and they would do whatever it takes.

But what about our homeless veterans? No one cares, it’s a national disgrace. Mind you, it beats me why anyone would want to join the Armed Forces these days, they’re not used to defend our country, they’re there to meddle in other people’s homelands where they get their legs blown off and then our Government then throw them away like a discarded tissue, and they then have to rely on charities to help.

I understand that some of these migrants are coming across because of the conditions in their homeland, and who can condemn them if our Government are letting them in, but why can’t our Government accommodate them on a few cruise vessels offshore, they would be less likely to abscond from them and their cases could be dealt with in the meantime. At least that way our British citizens and veterans who are living on the streets in this painfully cold weather could be put in a nice Pontins camp where they would have a bed and food.