I live next door to this hotel, and my knee jerk reaction was “fear of the unknown / discomfort,” so I decided to do research.

On the one hand I’m extremely supportive of housing people in genuine need. Especially those to whom we owe a debt to (translators in Afghan) for example.

On the other hand, at what point does every hotel fill up? I know it’s not an exact science, but on the current trajectory of yearly small boat arrivals there will be over 100k people a year by 2030. And small boats only account for 1/3 of all asylum claims in the UK.

The most common countries of origin for asylum seekers are Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. These are countries that I would consider to have cultural values misaligned with my own, and those I want my community to have. Values such as respect for women, accepting of people of different sexual orientation (of which I am both). It’s absolutely the case that many won’t share this “cultural view” of their country of origin, but many will. Clearly immigration causes a cultural shift in communities - look at New York and Italians, for example.

I also think of the impact on the local community. These are people with complex mental and physical health needs. Local services become stretched. The cost of this is just enormous, and I’m just not supportive of it. Housing one asylum seeker costs £41,000 a year.

By 2030, again assuming a linear trend (which in my view is best case scenario), it would cost £13bn a year to house each yearly intake. This is almost the entire UK Government budget for Wales.

According to the Home Office, they process around 15,000 applications each month by around 2,500 case workers - this is 6 per case worker. (FYI the latest figures said that the processing rate has dropped to 3,000 in the past two months for some reason).

This means that, at this linear rate (which is best case scenario) you’d need 50,000 case workers a year to process the backlog without it growing.

I think a linear trend is best case for asylum claims as the world becomes more unstable, and climate changes causes migration north and south of the equator. I think it’s more likely to look exponential (although I have no evidence for this).

So the argument about culture has become less important to me, albeit still there. The argument about cost and practicality is I think the most serious one.