Great Yarmouth Borough Council said it had serious concerns about people being put up at the Hotel Victoria in the town.

There had been a “lack of dialogue” from the Home Office and the hotel, the authority said.

The Home Office said it would not comment on individual hotels.

The hotel management declined to comment to the BBC.

A statement from the borough council said the hotel “should have applied for the correct planning permission before any asylum seekers were housed”.

It said it had not received any application for change of use and would “pursue appropriate enforcement action where necessary”.

The authority said it had “clearly communicated our views and concerns to both the hotel owner and the Home Office”.

“We are also concerned about placing further strain on core services in an already highly populated and prime tourist area,” the Conservative-led council said.

But it added it would “provide humanitarian support where necessary”.

Michael Jeal, an opposition Labour councillor for the area the hotel is in, said the Home Office has “ridden roughshod” over the planning application process.

“It is a hotel not a hostel,” he said.

The number of migrants picked up trying to cross the Channel in May is now higher than the figure for December, when a “major incident” was declared.

Eight men were intercepted in a small boat at about 06:20 BST, bringing the total for May so far to 140.

In December, during mild weather, 138 migrants attempted the journey and Home Secretary Sajid Javid set out a plan for dealing with the problem.

At least 642 migrants have now crossed the Channel since 3 November.

The Home Office said: “Those in need of protection should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.”

It added that since January “more than 30 people who arrived illegally in the UK in small boats have been returned to Europe”.

Britain will end the free movement of labour immediately after Brexit and introduce restrictions to deter all but highly-skilled EU workers under detailed proposals set out in a Home Office document leaked to the Guardian.

The 82-page paper, marked as extremely sensitive and dated August 2017, sets out for the first time how Britain intends to approach the politically charged issue of immigration, dramatically refocusing policy to put British workers first.

“Put plainly, this means that, to be considered valuable to the country as a whole, immigration should benefit not just the migrants themselves but also make existing residents better off,” the paper says.

It proposes measures to drive down the number of lower-skilled EU migrants – offering them residency for a maximum of only two years, in a document likely to cheer hardliners in the Tory party. Those in “high-skilled occupations” will be granted permits to work for a longer period of three to five years.

The document also describes a phased introduction to a new immigration system that ends the right to settle in Britain for most European migrants – and places tough new restrictions on their rights to bring in family members. Potentially, this could lead to thousands of families being split up.

Showing a passport will be mandatory for all EU nationals wanting to enter Britain – and the paper proposes introducing a system of temporary biometric residence permits for all EU nationals coming into the UK after Brexit for more than a few months.

The determination to end free movement from day one and drive down lower-skilled EU migration, end the role of the European court of justice in family migration and extend elements of Theresa May’s “hostile environment” measures to long-term EU migrants without residence permits is likely to please hard Brexiters.

Immigration is “particularly important” to the wholesale and retail, hospitality and health sectors, which employ around 1.5 million non-UK nationals, according to an official analysis.

Highlighting the severity of imposing curbs to immigration after Brexit research from the independent Office for National Statistics also shows that EU migrants account for as many as one in 10 of employees in some sectors of the British economy.

The ONS data claims that more than two million migrants from the EU were employed in industries including manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare and financial services during 2016.

The organisation’s annual report shows that last year’s estimated 3.4m workers – or around 11 per cent of the UK labour market – were foreign nationals. The number was made up of around 2.2m EU nationals and 1.2m non-EU nationals.

Britain’s net migration will be 80,000 a year lower after leaving the EU, the country’s independent forecaster has said.

The Office of Budget Responsibility [OBR] said net immigration will be 185,000 a year rather than the 265,000 a year that was expected.

The news was welcomed by Eurosceptics who argued it “vindicated” their calls during the referendum that leaving the EU would help curb migration.

There will however be knock-on effects to the economy, with an extra £16bn of borrowing estimated to be needed until 2020 to cover the drop.

Despite the reduction in immigration, the Tories are still forecast to miss their target of lowering net migration to below 100,000 after Brexit.

The decision by leading leave campaigners such as Boris Johnson to endorse Nigel Farage’s policy of an Australian points-based system for a post-Brexit British approach to immigration was one of the bigger surprises of the referendum campaign.

For, as experts such as the Migration Observatory have pointed out, points-based systems have been used by countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand with liberal migration policies looking to admit more people than come under company-sponsored work permits alone.

On one calculation, introducing a scaled-up Australian system in Britain could actually double annual immigration to the UK to 1.5 million or more.

So it is no wonder that on Monday at her G20 press conference in Hangzhou, the prime minister decisively rejected a points-based immigration system.

She argued that the “tick-box” approach of allowing in everyone who meets the criteria was a recipe for abuse, citing the example of “bogus overseas students”. She said that a new immigration policy would involve Britain “regaining an element of control” over EU migrants coming into the country.

Countryfile presenter Anita Rani says she fears the west is becoming increasingly intolerant of refugees.

Shortly after taking part in Strictly Come Dancing last year, the TV presenter visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, on the border with Syria, which is now home to 80,000 people after opening four years ago.

She jumped at the chance to visit because she was “sickened by some of the rhetoric used to describe fellow humans in their most extreme hour of need” by the media.

Writing about her experience in the Radio Times, she said: “I’m deeply concerned that we are increasingly unable to see beyond someone’s colour or accent.

“The west is in danger of turning away from tolerance, from the progressive, forward-thinking countries that we pride ourselves on being.

“Instead we are becoming close-minded and extreme, all within living memory of the second world war.”

The TV presenter said she was “acutely aware” of how lucky she was to live in Britain, explaining her paternal grandfather was invited to move to England from India in the 1950s to work here.

Rani expressed surprise that hardly any of the refugees spoke of wanting to come to Europe, instead wishing to return to their homeland of Syria.