The owner of the Cresta Court Hotel has spoken for the first time since it was confirmed it would be "temporarily" becoming a holding centre for asylum seekers.
Earlier this week the Altrincham hotel suddenly shut its doors, with all existing bookings and parties cancelled without warning.
It was then confirmed that the Church Street hotel - a fixture of the town centre's hospitality scene since the 1970s - had agreed a deal with Serco, which manages asylum seeker housing for the Home Office.
It's now expected that up to 300 asylum seekers will be moving into the hotel for a period of at least 12 months.
The deal with Serco will net Vine Hotels - which acquired the Cresta Court last year - a sum likely to be several millions of pounds.
As yet there has been no word from anyone representing Vine Hotels, which is owned by Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC and former chairman of the FA.
We approached the company's PR representative and requested a comment from the Vine Hotels' owners, as well as clarification about the position in relation to those people who had seen their bookings at the Cresta Court suddenly cancelled.
However, we have instead been sent the below quote which purports to be from Rob Nicholson, who was only officially confirmed as the Cresta Court's new general manager last week.
He said: "Thanks for your enquiry regarding the Best Western Cresta Court Hotel. All bookings at the Hotel are treated in the strictest of confidence, so we are not able to give specific details on any guests staying with us or using the Hotel's facilities."
We asked for a comment that specifically related to the closure of the hotel and its intended use, but Vine Hotels' PR representative simply said that the statement was "all I can share".
Oliver Carroll, of the Altrincham and Sale West Conservative Association said that residents were "justifiably angry" by the way the decision had been "presented as a fait accompli".
He also called on local MP Connor Rand, who defeated Carroll at the July general election to become the constituency's first Labour MP in a century, to use his Parliamentary influence to ensure that migrants were "families, rather than unaccompanied single men".
