The owners of two hotels used for housing homeless people have been paid almost £2million from the council.

The Alexander Thomson Hotel in Argyle Street has been paid £1,575,364 for accommodating people in the last ten years.

Another hotel owned by the same family owned GDB Group, the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Hotel, in Union Street has been paid £275,047 over the same period.

The council said it has a legal duty to accommodate people it believes to be homeless and it has to be paid for.

The cash is part of the overall spend by the council for providing emergency accommodation for people who find themselves homeless.

There have been concerns reported about the use of the Alexander Thomson Hotel with people housed there complaining of “squalor” and a number of people died while housed there during the pandemic

In 2020 it was reported that nine people died in the Alexander Thomson Hotel throughout the year, since March, when it was used for emergency accommodation.

The hotels have been used by the council for a long period.

The £I.85m total has been paid to the hotels between 2010 and 2021.

The information was requested by housing campaigner Sean Clerkin.

It was initially refused on the grounds of commercial confidentiality between the council and a contractor.

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It previously said “Disclosure of the information would, or would be likely to, substantially prejudice the commercial interests of both the Council and the Alexander Thomson Hotel.”

It added disclosure would allow other providers to know the costs charged and they could undercut the Alexander Thomson Hotel and that disclosure could deter some organisations from continuing to provide temporary accommodation knowing that their price structure and costs can easily be made public.

Following a review, however it was decided to release the information.

Mr Clerkin said the hotels should not receive any more public money.

He said: “Glasgow City Council has handed over £1.85 million to the owner of the Alexander Thomson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh hotels where 9 homeless people died in 2020 and one homeless person died in 2021 and were there have been serious complaints over recent years about poor conditions for homeless people in these hotels including mice infestation.

“We are therefore calling for public monies to be withdrawn from these hotels so that profit is not made out of the misery of very vulnerable homeless people and that instead homeless people are put into warm,dry and secure accommodation were they can access wrap around services for drugs, alcohol and mental health.

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“It is shameful that some people prefer to be on the streets because of the Victorian and Dickensian conditions existing in these and other temporary accommodation in Glasgow.”

A Glasgow City Council spokesperson, said: “We have a legal duty under section 29 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 to provide emergency accommodation to those it believes are homeless and which the council must pay for in order to provide emergency homelessness provision as and when required.”