'I stayed at a hotel in a UK seaside town where every other guest was homeless'

Clacton-on-Sea has gained political notoriety of late after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage won the House of Commons seat at the most recent General Election in 2024. But the area has long been known as a classic UK seaside town, visited by Brits for 150 years after being founded by Peter Bruff in 1871 as a coastal resort. The summer sees local businesses, such as hotels, generate valuable income from visitors, and many of these or course are advertised online.

However a journalist has written about noticing a few unusual things when arriving at a Booking.com booking in the Essex town. Robert Jackman recalled seeing a number of printed signs around the front door, which reminded guests of the need to sign in every night. This is a request for individuals in council-funded emergency accommodation. Guests were also told not to bring alcohol into the property, nor lend money on site.

Mr Jackman wrote: "When choosing a bed and breakfast, I had expected I might have to worry about a dodgy shower or lumpy mattress - not the threat of loan sharks."

He added in the Telegraph that the accommodation's breakfast room had been repurposed as a "student-style shared kitchen", with residents each having their own cupboard.

In the end he got some sleep in the "basic but not terrible" room. But the shower had hot water, and Robert had to endure some "gravelly voices arguing during the night".

He concluded that the Clacton Guest House was an example of a hotel that had accepted large sums of money from its local authority to house those at risk of homelessness.

Tendring Council spends some £2million a year on temporary accommodation. However noble, the fact that a hotel was "effectively repurposed as a homeless shelter", yet still advertised for paying guests, did not sit right with Robert. He worked out that only one room was available for tourists, with the others, he presumed, taken by longer-term residents.

The journalist wrote: "What disappointed me most as a paying guest was the fact that Booking.com doesn't require hotels to state when they are operating as 'temporary accommodation' or HMOs (houses in multiple occupation), as Clacton Guest House is doing."

Clacton has been rated near the bottom of the leaderboard when Brits were asked to name their favourite seaside towns.

Which? conducted a survey asking 4,000 members about their experiences of resorts last year, Nigel Farage's patch came third from bottom out of 30 entrants.

Booking.con has been approached for comment by the Express.