A HOMELESS family were put up at a four-star hotel by a council.

The family of three had been made homeless by a fire and were placed at the Jurys Inn Waterfront on Brighton seafront by the city Council.

The council paid £75 per person for the stay, an invoice from the visit shows - putting the cost under “flexible rate room only”.

On the popular website Booking.com a standard double room at the hotel can cost between £352 and £376.

It comes as more people in Brighton and Hove are being put up in hotels and other short-term rooms due to a lack of emergency accommodation.

A council spokesman said: “There’s increasing pressure on housing in the city due to the national housing crisis.

“More people than ever are at risk of homelessness through the lack of affordable housing, and underfunded and overburdened services in health and social care add to the desperate situation many people find themselves in.

“We use spot purchased emergency accommodation on a ‘needs must’ basis when we have no other option. We move the household to blocked booked accommodation as soon as we can.

“Improving housing supply in the city is a key priority. There will be an update at the next Housing Committee on our plans to deliver 800 new council homes.”

Conservative councillor Mary Mears, who sits in the Rottingdean Coastal ward, said the housing shortage was a problem of “the council’s own making”.

As well as this, several unofficial homeless camps have been sighted around the city, including in Market Street, Brighton, on Hove Lawns and at The Level.

In response to these, a council spokesman said it was “trying to ensure that all who need accommodation are assisted”.

He added: “We are looking at ways we can offer more help to reduce the crisis that we can all see more visibly as a result of the tent encampments.

“We have worked hard over the last two years to attract additional grant funding from central government to increase the housing options available to people who are or are at risk of rough sleeping in Brighton and Hove.

“Despite this, at present, hostels are often full and many of the people sleeping rough in the city are waiting for accommodation to become available.

“To address this, we have committed funds and put a lot of work into finding a building for a night shelter, which will open 365 days a year. Expression of interests went out this summer asking for organisations to let us know if they’d be interested in running it.”