Kenilworth hotel set to temporarily close to customers and become a Covid-19 quarantine site, says councillor

Councillor Richard Dickson said the town council has encouraged the hotel's owners and the Department of Health and Social Care to reassure residents over the use of the site
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A Kenilworth hotel is set to close to customers temporarily and become a Covid-19 quarantine site.

This is according to town councillor Richard Dickson who said the Holiday Inn at Abbey End in Kenilworth could be used as a quarantine hotel "for a period up to and including October".

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And he said the council has encouraged the hotel's owner InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to issue a media statement to reassure residents that the hotel will be Covid secure.

NHS public health poster for Coronavirus.NHS public health poster for Coronavirus.
NHS public health poster for Coronavirus.

Cllr Dickson said: "I can fully appreciate the concerns of local residents on this matter, both in terms of the Covid risks because the town has worked so hard in the past 15 months to respond to COVID, and equally about the way in which this has all been managed and communicated centrally.

"Most people recognise we need the hotel to survive as a business but people feel they've been taken for granted and done to by the authorities in London.

"Hopefully we can find a way, notwithstanding that they have to stay inside the hotel, to give these extra visitors a warm Kenilworth welcome so that they'll want to come back afterwards with their families to visit to spend time and money in the town."

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IHG has declined to comment while a spokeswoman for the DHSC has said: "“Our top priority is protecting the public and our robust border regime is helping minimise the risk of new variants imported into the UK.

The Holiday Inn at Abbey End in Kenilworth.The Holiday Inn at Abbey End in Kenilworth.
The Holiday Inn at Abbey End in Kenilworth.

“The government continues to work to ensure we have enough hotel capacity available to meet demand from red list country arrivals and we have ongoing agreements with a number of hotels moving into the summer.”

The DHSC says it does not publish the names of government-contracted hotels or the number of hotels contracted in any given area.

The spokeswoman added: "We continue to expand the managed quarantine service (MQS) to provide enough hotel capacity to ensure British citizens and residents are able to exercise their right to return from a red list country, and closely monitor availability with more rooms are being obtained as needed.

"If more countries are added to the red list, and passenger numbers from red list countries continue to increase, we have extensive contingency plans dependent on the changing situation."