A hotel which gets £1million a year of taxpayers’ cash to house the homeless has been ordered to improve living standards. Local authority inspectors told the owners of Queens Park Hotel, in Glasgow’s South Side, to carry out urgent repairs after the Record exposed its filthy conditions.
The hotel gets £2800 a month in housing benefit per homeless couple for a double room. It also charges Glasgow City Council £1400 a month for a single room with shared toilet facilities.
One room the Record saw had a chair, a bed, a broken chest of drawers, a stained carpet and mattress, and a TV hanging off the wall. After we revealed conditions at the hotel last month, the council sent a team to carry out room-by-room inspections.
They gave Queens Park Hotel owners Malvin Dale Ltd a six-week deadline to bring it up to an acceptable standard.
Glasgow City Council is the hotel’s only customer.
Neighbours of the property wrote to Scottish Labour MSP Paul Sweeney to complain about antisocial behaviour. They also raised concerns over residents’ welfare after witnessing altercations with staff.
Sweeney said: “It is welcome that Glasgow City Council have sent inspectors to the hotel and provided the owners with a list of essential repair works.
“However, we only got to this point because of media attention rather than a genuine willingness to listen to the concerns that had already been raised privately.
“Residents had been engaging with the council and others for months. Not a finger was lifted despite repeated warnings that the safety of those living in and around the property was in jeopardy, so I’m sceptical these inspections will elicit the level of change required.”
A meeting was held earlier this month between neighbours of the hotel, Glasgow City Council, police and politicians.
The council said: “We work with the owners of establishments to ensure accommodation is of an acceptable standard. When standards are not met, we fully expect owners to put remedial actions in place.”
Malvin Dale were contacted for comment.
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