‘Citilodge must close’: MP tells crime meeting that hotel should stop being used to house homeless

Simon Lightwood made the comments at a meeting to discuss the spiralling crime rate in Wakefield city centre.

Business owners and residents are calling on Wakefield Council to stop using Citilodge to house vulnerable residents.

Cafe, shop and pub owners in the Lower Warrengate area say they have faced “ruin” since the council began using it as a “dumping ground”.

Mr Lightwood organised a meeting to discuss city centre crime issues at Wakefield Town Hall last Friday (March 17)

After the meeting, Mr Lightwood said: “I’ve been regularly in touch with business owners in this area and I’ve been really concerned to hear of the impact these issues have had on them.

“I wanted to bring the council and the police together with businesses, to show business owners that we’re absolutely committed to doing all we can to help.

“It’s clear that, in its current form, Citilodge must close. The impact on the city centre and on policing resources just isn’t sustainable.

“After £300m of cuts, I’ve asked the government for more support for the council as there just isn’t the accommodation locally to house all those who are homeless in our district, forcing the council to rely on the use of unsuitable hotels.”

Business owners also called for action to get a CCTV operation in place. It emerged last month that many of the council’s CCTV cameras are currently out of use.

More than 60 break-ins have been reported in the city centre during a six-month period from last September. Some premises on Wood Street and Northgate have been repeatedly targeted.

West Yorkshire Police has acknowledged that there has been an increase in burglary in the city centre since the start of the year.

Mr Lightwood continued: “I’m pleased to see that the council is taking swift action to provide mobile CCTV to tackle issues in Northgate and at Citilodge.

“I’ll be continuing to work with them and the police.

“This is just the start of the conversation and I’ll be continuing to organise these meetings in the weeks and months ahead.”

Wakefield Council leader Denise Jeffery said: “I fully agree that Citilodge is not the right place to accommodate the homeless, especially those with complex needs.

“I have said before that it is not right for them, nor for the city centre.

“We are in this situation because we have no other choice right now.

“If there was any other alternative we would move them immediately, so it is our absolute priority to find a better way to do this.

“In the meantime, we’ve re-established an action group to try and tackle the current issues, as well as increasing council patrols, and setting up mobile CCTV to target this area.

“We’ve raised this as a major issue to the government, and yet again have been offered no solution or support.

“The use of hotels is a last resort but something we are more reliant on than ever now, as the housing market cannot meet the demand, and more and more people find themselves homeless.”