A FIRM owned by a former Canvey businessman has made a £60million profit from migrant hotels, it has been revealed.

Accounts for Clearsprings Ready Homes owned by Graham King, a former caravan park and disco tycoon, made £62.5million in profits after tax for the year ending January 2023.

This was more than double its profits of £28million the previous year.

Clearsprings Ready Homes is one of three private companies that has contracts with the Home Office to provide asylum accommodation.

The company was contacted for comment by the Echo but failed to respond.

The Home Office said it does not comment on commercial arrangements for individual sites used for asylum accommodation. However, a spokesperson said: “Despite the number of people arriving in the UK reaching record levels, we continue to ensure the accommodation provided meets all legal and contractual requirements whilst also providing value for money for the taxpayer.

“We remain committed to ending the use of expensive hotels for asylum seekers. That is why we are moving asylum seekers into alternative, cheaper accommodation and clearing the legacy backlog.”

The Home Office added: “There is a profit share device in the asylum accommodation contracts that ensures that profit over and above the agreed percentage comes back to the Home Office.”

The company made £25million in 2021 thanks to a Home Office contract to house asylum seekers in southern England and Wales.

With surging numbers of cross-Channel migrants and a Government pledge to cut back on the cost of accommodating asylum seekers in hotels, Mr King can expect to see profits continuing to rise.

There were more than 50,000 asylum seekers in hotels as of the end of June 2023, costing £8.2 million a day. Including all contingency accommodation, the numbers accommodated are more than 52,000.

In the early 2000s Mr King ran a caravan park in Canvey, with his brother. He later used a building he had formerly run as a disco to house refugees.

After that, he reportedly housed refugees in at a run-down former barracks in Kent and an Army camp in Pembrokeshire.