Abhi is fed up with the racist abuse thrown at him on a daily basis while he works behind the counter in a small corner shop in Datchet, a mile and a half away from Windsor Castle.
But the racism isn’t coming from far-right agitators or Middle England locals. It’s coming from some of the asylum seekers housed in the only hotel in the village, located on the banks of the River Thames, which would take the Prince and Princess of Wales just a ten-minute stroll to reach from their home at Adelaide Cottage.
“They abuse me because I’m from India and I’m Hindu,” says Abhi, a 24-year-old who has lived in the UK legally for several years.
He says most of the abuse comes from Muslim asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Pakistan living at the 54-bedroom Manor Hotel, described on its website as a “boutique hotel” and given three stars on booking.com, promising a “serene country house experience” with a “beautiful garden”.
“They abuse me because I’m from India and I’m Hindu,” Abhi says. “They come in and shout ‘Muslim is good, Allah Allah’. They come in and say, ‘Indians are not good, f*** Hinduism’. It’s f***ing bad. They’re always coming in, taking food, [they] don’t pay. I personally hate it.”
Local residents and workers are counting down the days until the hotel stops being used to house asylum seekers at the end of next month.
It was one of the six additional hotels being used to house migrants since Labour entered power in July despite its pledge to end their use for asylum seekers, with more than 38,000 in hotels nationally at a cost of £5.5 million per day.
Datchet, with its postcard charm and royal neighbours, finds itself in unfamiliar territory
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Demand is certain to grow as a record 6,796 migrants have arrived in small boats so far this year, a quarter higher than this time last year, while more than 400 migrants were seen crossing the Channel on Tuesday.
One of those who arrived on a boat in January was an Iranian man in his twenties who told The Times during a visit to Datchet this week that he had been living at The Manor Hotel for three months. He then took a call on his mobile and wandered off down the road.
Irene Husbands, 91, has the happiest memories of The Manor Hotel, having held her wedding reception there in 1962, but says its use to house asylum seekers at taxpayers’ expense puts a dampener on this.
“Nobody’s happy around here,” she said. “It shouldn’t be allowed. The hotel’s making a nice lot of money, aren’t they, because the government pays them.”
• How affluent market town learnt to live with migrant hotel
For the past 29 years, Nibbles, a family-run café directly opposite the back entrance to The Manor Hotel, has been kept going by regular wedding guests and other tourists staying at the hotel. But now the café is struggling.
Cheryl Bohdjalian, 58, who owns the café, says that while hotel guests have not caused them any specific problems in the last six months, it has been “terrible for business”.
“We used to get normal hotel guests coming in for breakfast or lunches, that sort of thing. But they [the asylum seekers] don’t contribute anything at all to the village,” she said. “They don’t cause any problems but they do hang out in their groups and it has had an impact on some people moving out of the area or others not coming here any more, which makes a difference to our business because we used to be right opposite a hotel with paying guests. And a lot of locals used to go in there to use the bar.”
Her daughter Charlotte Finlayson, 32, says placing dozens of asylum seekers in a small village such as Datchet is inappropriate.
Datchet’s pubs remain a gathering place in a village quietly feeling the strain of change
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“It’s too small a village to have something like that here,” she says. “It’s not the right place, it should be in a town somewhere, not a tiny little village. It’s stuck in the middle of a small village and it’s just an eyesore. To start with they used to hang around the park and there were a few stories of kids being watched and videoing the kids.”
Three other people The Times spoke to independently repeated claims that some asylum seekers from the hotel had hung around the primary school, with two of them saying they had spotted migrants filming children at some stage, although this has not been verified.
Paul Clark, who helps run Kris Cruises, his family’s boat rental business on the Thames, said: “There are lots of issues … standing outside schools, you’ve got all these down-and-out people there, but you have two schools here — you have a primary school and a senior school, it’s not right to bring them into a small village when you’ve got schools here.”
Tony Dixon, a construction developer who has lived in Datchet for ten years, said: “A few of them were caught filming children at the school. They’re from a completely different culture but we don’t feel safe any more. Mums at the school are having to leave work early to pick up their children rather than let them walk home on their own. When a group of ten of them are walking around in groups, it’s not pleasant for the local community. They’re also walking around at two and three in the morning.
“It’s just a shame because they’re ruining a village where everyone feels safe.”
• Our local hotel was turned into a home for asylum seekers. Nobody warned us
A teenage girl who asked not to be named said she had felt intimidated during the darker winter months when the men at the hotel stood around in groups opposite the café she works in. “One of them even barked at me,” she said.
What caused the most anger in the village was the lack of consultation or warning from the Home Office of the intention to open a hotel that would accommodate up to 82 single male migrants.
David Buckley, an independent councillor who represents Datchet and is chairman of the parish council, said there was no evidence of any impact on crime or antisocial behaviour from the asylum seekers, but their presence had nonetheless caused a lot of anxiety in the village.
“It’s made the community nervous but not had a direct impact other than young men walking around,” he said.
“These people have to be housed somewhere but obviously it does make the community nervous and there was no communication from the Home Office. There was no discussion with the local community, which made people angry.
“People understand that they have to have somewhere to stay but the question is whether they should be here in the first place because they’re coming here illegally.”
A shop in Datchet, where some local businesses say trade has declined since the nearby Manor Hotel began housing asylum seekers
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Jack Rankin, the 32-year-old Conservative MP who represents Datchet, says the village was given just 24 hours’ notice before asylum seekers were moved in last November.
He is one of a few MPs who has managed to persuade the Home Office to close an asylum hotel under this government. He did so by successfully arguing how inappropriate a place Datchet was for asylum seekers and showing the Home Office its impact on GP waiting lists and the social cohesion of the village.
He said: “There shouldn’t be 70 unvetted asylum seekers who are young single men in a little quaint village in England. It’s also not fair on the local businesses who have suffered from a lack of trade.”
A Home Office representative said: “We are delivering on our pledge to close asylum hotels, which will drastically reduce taxpayer costs and give control back to local communities.
“The asylum system ground to a standstill under the last government, but we are reversing that damage by fixing the foundations of our immigration system. We have increased asylum decision-making by 52 per cent in the last three months of 2024 and removed more than 24,000 people with no right to be here.”
• Migrant hotel numbers rise as asylum claims hit record high
The Manor Hotel and Clearsprings Ready Homes, the private contractor that manages the contract on behalf of the Home Office, both declined to comment.
At the end of May, all remaining migrants at the hotel will be transferred to a cluster of asylum hotels around Heathrow as the Home Office attempts to reduce the number of hotels being used by consolidating them in larger hotels that will have less of an impact on local communities.
For the local residents and business owners in Datchet, the end of May can’t come soon enough.
Speaking as she and her mother cleared up from another slow day of business at Nibbles, Finlayson said: “We’re counting down the days, but it’s just wondering what’s next to be honest.”
