Altrincham is a prosperous market town in Greater Manchester. It is also part of what is known as the Golden Triangle, bounded by the Cheshire villages of Bowdon, Hale and Alderley Edge, and home to wealthy professionals, footballers and soap stars.
And so, the area is one of the most sought-after places to live in the country.
A century of Conservative dominance ended in the summer when Altrincham returned a Labour MP. Voters might not do so again in a hurry.
The reason they might be regretting the switch is encapsulated above the entrance of the Cresta Court Hotel, a short stroll from the fashionable shopping streets of the town centre, where the brand name Best Western and the insignia BW used to be displayed next to the name of the once-popular establishment.
Both Best Western and BW have disappeared, however, leaving behind scuffs on the cladding and old bracket holes.
The removal of the signage is perhaps understandable in the circumstances because the hotel, we now know, has closed and paying guests have been replaced by nearly 300 asylum seekers.
The move is unlikely to enhance the reputation of other Best Western establishments, after all, or get a star-rating from the AA, hence the not-so subtle change above the Cresta Court entrance.
Behind it is a story that has galvanised, and divided, Altrincham.
Protest meetings have been held, angry words exchanged, a petition demanding the new arrivals be moved somewhere else already has more than 4,000 signatures and social media has been flooded with posts calling the decision to house migrants (all men) in the heart of a residential area close to a primary school – unlike the location of many other repurposed properties around the country – a betrayal.
Altrincham residents voice worries over the Cresta Court Hotel at a protest meeting
‘Altrincham and its residents have been sold down the river,’ wrote one furious local in the comment section of news website Altrincham Today, which summed up the mood here.
The controversy has, almost inevitably, attracted the ugly face of the far-Right in the shape of Britain First, which filmed the asylum seekers – who come from such countries as Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea – turning up at the hotel.
Mistrust and recriminations have become embedded in the town, at least for the moment.
Hard to believe all this is happening in fashionable, upmarket Altrincham where homes sold for an average £535,000 over the past year and which is regularly named one of the best places to live in the UK.
It should be stressed, at the outset, there is no evidence these migrants, many of whom crossed the Channel in small boats, have caused trouble or behaved badly in any way. but neither does this mean the concerns of residents, echoed by ordinary Britons across the country, are not heartfelt or legitimate. The two things can be true at the same time.
Very similar concerns are being voiced 180 miles south in similarly genteel Datchet, Berkshire, a village in the shadow of Windsor Castle.
Here, some residents are threatening to sell up and leave, after the local 200-bed hotel was turned into a holding centre for asylum seekers.
Either way, it would be disingenuous to lay the blame for the controversy entirely at the door of the new Labour government given the record of failure during the previous 14 years.
Nevertheless, the prime minister said he would ‘smash the gangs’, but the number of migrants to arrive so far in 2024 – including 572 last Saturday – is 32,691, up 22 per cent on the same period last year.
It was also a manifesto pledge to end the use of hotels to house migrants, but the situation in leafy Altrincham is proof that is not the case.
There are a number of aggravating factors which have incensed residents.
Altrincham’s Cresta Court Hotel is housing lone males
Firstly, the lack of consultation and secrecy surrounding the Home Office decision to commandeer Cresta Court.
Local councillors were initially informed by encrypted email – a security measure that ensures only the intended recipients can read it – at the end of October, just before the hotel shut.
They were intrigued: ‘I have been a councillor for nine or ten years,’ said Nathan Evans, leader of the Trafford Conservative Group, ‘and I have never had an encrypted message before.
‘Other people [non-councillors] also had messages and were asked not to share that information.’
The reason for all the paranoia became clear a few nights later, when the migrants arrived, literally under cover of darkness.
‘The asylum seekers were moved in at night,’ said one father. ‘There was no opportunity to object. No leaflets. No consultation. Nothing.’ Or, to quote someone else who lives in Altrincham, it ‘has been done on the sly’.
The tactics have proved utterly counter-productive, only adding to the sense of betrayal many people who live in the town feel – without managing to keep the news from undesirable elements, if that was the intention. This has so far proved impossible everywhere a migrant hotel has opened.
How can you hope to hide 300 asylum seekers in plain sight?
Secondly, unlike the Britannia Ashley Hotel in nearby Hale, where migrant families have been placed, only single young men have been moved into the hotel in Altrincham. Police have stressed that background checks have been carried out on the new arrivals and ‘there is no intelligence to suggest they are a danger to the public’.
But, as local resident Roger Roper, pointed out: ‘If they don’t have any papers or passports, we just don’t know.’
Another woman, a mother with a young daughter, added: ‘These are 300 young guys.
‘Their views on women are culturally different. Let us not pretend. Is my daughter going to be safe as she goes into Altrincham and has a few drinks? There are 300 guys from countries we know do not always value women. I’m sorry but these are the hard facts.’
Thirdly, the sudden closure of Cresta Court just weeks before Christmas resulted in the cancellation of dozens of bookings, including wedding receptions.
Dan Butler and Katy Evans hoped to get married there next year. They found out they wouldn’t be when a relative rang them and told them ‘look at the story online’, which revealed that the hotel had, in fact, closed.
‘We had heard nothing from the hotel at all, so I rang them up as I had to hear it for myself,’ Katy, 38, an office manager, told Altrincham Today.
‘I asked ‘Is this true?’, the lady who answered said ‘Yes, it is.’ I asked why they had not rung to tell me, and she said they had two funerals and a wedding on the list before they were going to call me.
‘But I’ve still heard nothing [at the time the article appeared on October 31]. That is what has upset me most. I was crying in the office in front of everyone, it was so embarrassing. I just couldn’t handle it.’
The couple have now found an alternative venue for their big day and did not wish to speak further about what happened.
The Cresta Court Hotel’s Best Western logo, seen in the top image, has been removed
The Cresta Court is owned by Vine Hotels – whose chairman is former BBC Director General Greg Dyke. The company owns a number of Best Western hotels around the country.
‘All guests and events have been found alternative accommodations or venues without financial loss,’ said Cresta Court general manager Rob Nicholson.
‘All couples were contacted as quickly as possible, offered support, have been refunded, and have found new venues without incurring any additional expense.’
Whatever your stance on the issue, locals also fear the economy of Altrincham, with an award-winning high street crowned the best in the country a few years ago, and lined with upmarket bars, boutiques and artisan coffee shops, will be hit by the influx of single male asylum seekers.
‘I am worried that our thriving town centre will be damaged by all the worry this has caused,’ said Ray Evans, 74, who has lived in the town all his life. ‘It’s all been handled really badly.’
Businesses are going to be hit by the hotel’s closure over Christmas and a number of people we spoke to said they would no longer visit Altrincham after dark to eat at local restaurants.
‘Everyone living near the hotel feels more unsafe now,’ is how one local put it, even though nothing untoward has happened, something the police confirmed.
Matters came to a head at a public meeting held at a church near the hotel, and organised by Conservative councillors.
Tempers flared when it was suggested, wrongly as it turned out, that asylum seekers would receive medical treatment from a private doctors’ service at a time when it was announced that Altrincham Hospital’s minor injuries unit would be closing permanently.
‘I phoned my doctor’s the other day and was number 30 in the queue and I’m 75,’ was the response of a pensioner in the audience. ‘I was told I would have to wait four months or six months to see a physio. I can’t sleep because of the pain in my shoulder, and I have paid National Insurance all my life.’
The strain on local services is unlikely to get any better in the foreseeable future. but the provider awarded the contract to support asylum seekers at Cresta Court, GTD Healthcare, is a non-profit company only providing NHS-commissioned services, including the management of 13 GP practices plus urgent care centres.
‘The NHS has a legal duty to provide the appropriate healthcare for people while their asylum claims are being processed and this happens across the country, so this arrangement is not unique to Greater Manchester,’ GTD said in a statement.
‘Providing this support to the people living at the Cresta Court Hotel aims to minimise the impact on local health services.’
Roger Roper attended the meeting with his wife Gwyneth. The couple had a Ukrainian family in their home for 14 months and say they welcomed documented asylum seekers.
But Mrs Roper said it isn’t racist to raise concerns, adding: ‘It’s wrong of local, central government and the Home Office not to consult us on something that could impact on the local community,’ she reminded everyone.
Yet, outside the meeting, the misinformation about ‘private healthcare’ inflamed the already toxic atmosphere and was a stark reminder of how dangerous unfounded or false claims about mass migration can be in the current febrile climate.
So called ‘asylum hotels’ were targeted by far-right protesters during this summer’s riots, provoked by the fatal stabbing of three children at a dance class in Southport, Merseyside.
Unrest was fuelled by misinformation spread on social media that the suspect was an illegal migrant.
Someone who describes himself a self-proclaimed ‘patriot’ with a Union Jack on his X/Twitter profile, posted a video of the incendiary meeting and wrote: ‘This is the moment Altrincham residents found out that Fake Asylum Seekers housed in a nearby hotel are receivingPRIVATE HEALTHCARE [they aren’t] while their Local NHS Service is stretched to breaking point. And we the taxpayer are funding all of this. It’s amazing we don’t revolt.’
The petition calling for the migrants to be moved is to be handed to the Home Office next week.
‘People in Altrincham have a lot of questions which the Home Office and the local council have failed to answer,’ said Matt Vickers, shadow minister for crime and policing, who was visiting local businesses affected by the hotel’s closure.
‘How long is the hotel going to be used to house migrants? What is the plan for people who have stayed there?’
Back at the hotel, security guards in fluorescent jackets are on duty. Migrants themselves were oblivious to the escalating row.
One man who recently arrived from Afghanistan described the hotel as ‘nice’ in his limited English, but he did not understand what the NHS was or why the issue of healthcare for asylum seekers had aroused such anger.
Connor Rand, the Labour MP for Altrincham and Sale West has been inundated with emails from concerned residents.
One of them was from David Pritchard, who warned: ‘There is at least one open goal, which is listening to and respecting the views of normal, hard-working and stand-up citizens,’ he wrote. ‘We cannot be and will not be taken for granted.’
Additional reporting: Tim Stewart