Thousands face being made homeless as asylum backlog is cleared

IT'S A TYPICAL autumnal afternoon in Manchester city centre.

- JOSEPH TIMAN

Traffic is building up on the ring road as rush hour begins and commuters are queuing for their tram home while others are on their way into town with a whole evening ahead of them.

But just metres away, life for some is standing still. Two men are standing outside a hotel on the edge of the city centre with music blaring from headphones which are resting on the wall outside the building while they breathe in the crisp October air.

They fled war in Ethiopia and hoped to make Manchester their new home. But for the last 11 months, they have been in limbo.

They are among the 175,000 people from across the world who are waiting for the government to decide whether or not they can stay in the UK. Not all of them are living in hotels - many are in shared accommodation scattered across the city-region. One thing unites them all though. Once a decision is made on their asylum claim, they will have to find somewhere else to live - and fast.

The prime minister has committed to clearing the backlog of asylum seeker applications by the end of the year. Few believe the backlog will be eliminated entirely, but in a bid to bring the numbers down, the Home Office has been ramping up its decision-making process, more than doubling the number of caseworkers who decide whether to approve or reject claims.

Last week, the immigration minister also announced that hotels which have been housing asylum seekers at a cost of £8m a day will no longer be used for this purpose with the first 50 to be vacated by the end of January.

This includes the Kilhey Court Hotel in Standish which started housing asylum seekers just two months ago, sparking huge protests outside Wigan town hall.