A lifeboat crew on a training course was kicked out of a hotel midway through their stay to make way for asylum seekers, as thousands of homeless migrants are put up in five-star hotels.
Four members of the RNLI were turfed out of the three-star hotel in Hoylake, Merseyside, without notice on Tuesday.
They came back to find their bags packed and left in the foyer after taking part in a hovercraft training session on nearby mudflats.
A source said: ‘The irony is off the scale. These migrants were picked up in the Channel by members of Border Force and volunteers from the RNLI. Now some of those volunteers, literally on a course to improve the ways they can save lives at sea, have been kicked out of their hotel by the very people they’re training to rescue.’
The migrants were driven to the hotel from the crisis-hit overcrowded Manston asylum processing facility in Kent, more than 300 miles away.
It has also been revealed that four- and five-star hotels are being booked out for months at a time to house thousands of migrants.
The RNLI crew members – one volunteer and three staff – are now staying in a different hotel eight miles away in Liverpool.
The Hoylake hotel is the latest to be identified to house asylum seekers. Sources said councillors were ‘left in the dark’ about the plans.
It is understood that the local authority was notified on Monday that the premises, which has more than 50 rooms, had been commissioned by the Home Office and government contractor Serco to house migrants.
One in four hotels being used fall into the four- and five-star category, with the Home Office ‘refreshing booking.com’ in the hunt for spaces, a source told The Sun.
Read More: EXCLUSIVE: Kicked out so migrants can be let in
