Months after a rejected relocation, Sunrise Motel extension enters planning stage

The extension to house Queen’s Hotel residents at the Sunrise Motel has been released months after the men rejected an eviction process.

The Queen’s Hotel residents were set to be relocated to the Sunrise Motel on Devil’s Tower Road last year. 

But despite living in squalid conditions in the Queen’s Hotel, the men rejected to the move fearing conditions could be worse and more cramped in the Sunrise Motel. 

At the time it was proposed that the men would share spaces of up to eight beds in a room if they relocated to the Sunrise Motel. 

As a result, the Government agreed to provide for an extension at the Sunrise Motel to avoid overcrowding. 

Some 50 men currently live at the Queen’s Hotel and the extension is set to provide space for 150 people.

In the months since the unsuccessful relocation, the men have continued to live in squalid conditions and air their concerns with the repairs at the Queen’s Hotel, previously stating that not enough has been done.

The plan for an extension comes after the Minister for Housing Pat Orfila said the Government was reconsidering another proposal to temporarily relocate some of the men to a site in Engineer’s Lane.

Central to the issue is that the men feel like they have been treated like second-class citizens, having been relocated from site to site for the entirety of their working lives in Gibraltar.

Many of the men, now in the later stages of life, were brought to Gibraltar with the promise of work and have been shifted from hostel to hostel by successive Governments.

The issue came to the fore as the Queen’s Hotel needs to be vacated as the site will be handed over to a developer.

The developer plans to demolish the space for the luxury mixed-use Queen's Gate development, advertised as ‘a Casemates for the south’ with residential flats and a rooftop pool.

Ms Orfila has previously said she expects the extension to the Sunrise Motel to be completed within the next 18 months.

See more on the application here.