Two weeks ago, a video appeared on social media which appeared to show a group of asylum seekers checking into a hotel in Folkestone, unloading luggage from a vehicle as they did so.

It was retweeted and 'liked' many thousands of times - an example, claimed those posting it, of people arriving in a dinghy at Dover with no possessions before making hay with taxpayers' money. It's been viewed more than 125,000 times.

The only problem was they weren't asylum seekers. Nor was the hotel in question one of those block-booked by the Home Office to accommodate them.

Neil Lomas would know, as he's the general manager of the hotel featured in the footage - the Best Western Clifton.

"The clip had hundreds, if not thousands of negative, racist and aggressive comments, assuming they were asylum seekers," he said.

"They're not. They're an overseas film crew bringing money into the local area.

"But because they have a different colour skin straight away the comments are 'they're asylum seekers and they're turning up with their own luggage now'."

It is a perfect example of 'fake news' but one which stokes the fires of hate and division in this country over a long-running saga which is being played out on our doorstep.

When it was revealed the immigration processing centre at Manston was running at more than twice its capacity earlier this month there was, understandably, an uproar.

It resulted in the under-fire Home Office quickly reducing the 4,000 people there to within its 1,600-capacity limits. But the story doesn't end there.

Because, of course, the obvious question posed is just where did those people go?

The answer is to a growing number of hotels both in Kent and further afield - and that creates a whole host of new problems.

Folkestone, in particular, has found itself at the centre of the issue. Currently three hotels are block-booked for asylum seekers, with the latest striking a deal earlier this week.

"We used to get something like 300 to 400 people making the crossing in a week" says Cllr Mary Lawes, of Folkestone Town Council, "now it's between 700 and 1,000 a day; that really is not sustainable.

"We don't have the infrastructure for that."

Where once holiday-makers stayed, now those waiting on their asylum claims being processed are being housed.

The deals being struck will see existing staff made redundant and all existing bookings shelved.

Regardless of where you stand on the relentless saga of those making the perilous Channel crossing to reach these shores, it would be wrong simply to overlook the pressures it is creating on local communities.

From school places being squeezed to pressure on health and social care, the humanitarian crisis is taking its toll on Kent.

Just earlier this month, the leaders of Kent County Council, Medway Council and all of our district and borough councils put their names to a letter in which they described the county as being at "breaking point", such is the pressure.

With Whitehall tightening the public purse it seems difficult to imagine extra funding will be provided to offset the county having to shoulder so much of the burden.

A particular concern was over local authorities not being notified when hotels were being acquired by the Home Office, meaning local support services were always left playing catch-up as hundreds of people descended on an area.

The letter said: "The strategic sites being procured are equally problematic, the unsuitability in many cases not only detrimental for the county, but also for the vulnerable children and adults resident here.

"There has been no consultation before sites are established. The Home Office have failed at every turn to seek the expert insight of statutory partners around safeguarding, public health, Prevent [which safeguards against radicalisation], fire safety, NHS capacity, school places, appropriateness of the facility or its location before residents are in place and, if at all, then only after a crisis occurs requiring local intervention.

"Every time we are then promised lessons are learnt, only for the same to happen again."

Tempers frayed lasy month when a hotel in Ashford was filled without the knowledge of the local authority just days before the letter was penned. And it seems the Home Office continues to ignore the plea for a more joined-up approach to acquiring hotels.

The latest acquisition in Folkestone this week blind-sided the district council.

A spokesman for the authority said: "The council was notified by the Home Office that, through a contractor, a lease had been taken on a hotel.

"The hotel has been closed to guests and the rooms are being used to provide temporary accommodation for adult asylum seekers .

“The council was given no advance notice that this was happening so have had to escalate actions with partner organisations to establish what support is necessary for those living in the hotel.”

The anger may not be explicitly stated, but it is clearly just below the surface and understandable.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the incident at a Dover immigration processing site recently, the Home Office is shy when it comes to revealing where the hotels are they are taking asylum seekers. But sites in Canterbury, Ashford, Folkestone and Hythe have all been taken over - some, already, for more than a year.

Cllr Lawes, who represents Folkestone Harbour Ward for the Foundation Party, said: "The latest hotel in Folkestone is only 25 metres from another hotel which has, for a year or more, been filled with asylum seekers.

"This is not a temporary quick fix - this is long term.

"There's another in Hythe which has taken people since the problems at Napier Barracks - and that was 18 months ago."

Kimberly Huxley is the general manager of the Portland Hotel in Folkestone. It had been approached to take asylum seekers but opted against it - although other hotels nearby have. She says there is concern within the community, but there are benefits too.

People are sympathetic to their plight. I think it's good they're in hotels rather than those camps

She explained: "There are good and bad sides.

"The good side is we're getting more business because there are less hotel rooms in the area as a result of several being taken over for asylum-seekers.

"We run another hotel in the town too and normally this time of year is particularly hard for us as there are less people travelling through. But now we're full and that's a result of the squeeze on rooms in the town.

"The bad is that the word about town, and from those who use our bar, is that people are worried about their safety. But people are sympathetic to their plight. I think it's good [asylum seekers] are in hotels rather than those camps, and feel sympathy for what they've been through.

"We were approached to house asylum-seekers, but we have some long-stay people with us, workers and so on, and we wouldn't want to turf them out."

There is a lot of pressure in this area - on the NHS, social services and DWP, as well as the Home Office

And these sites being snapped up are not all B&Bs. They are big-name chains or popular independents.

The Best Western Clifton Hotel - which boasts a Marco Pierre White restaurant and Costa franchise - was also approached last year - but it too turned it down. Although it still found itself embroiled in the issue over the misidentified film crew.

Manager Mr Lomas explains: "We understand the situation the government is in and we wish them well, but when we were approached we declined as we have good business on the books. At the end of the day, the hotel is a brand, and brand integrity is important to us.

"I empathise with them escaping countries where they are persecuted, but we cannot keep taking these numbers as they are coming over. Some sort of solution needs to be found.

"There is a lot of pressure in this area - on the NHS, social services and DWP [Department of Work and Pensions], as well as the Home Office, none of which they are probably geared up to deal with."

Richard Martin runs the Blazing Donkey Country Hotel in Ham, near Sandwich - a three-star hotel with AA rosettes and a 4.5-star rating on Tripadvisor.

He was approached by a Home Office-appointed agency offering him more than £1 million to block-book the hotel for at least 12 months.

He turned it down, pointing out he had no desire to sack his 25 staff or cancel the bookings and weddings the venue already had on its books - despite the guaranteed income.

"We spent 30 years building up the business," he said, "but the money doesn’t come into it.

"We didn't consider the offer at all as our reputation would have been shattered overnight."

Hotel giant the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) owns a plethora of brands - one of which is Holiday Inn. At least two of its sites in the county are currently devoted entirely to providing asylum-seeker accommodation.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it wasn't willing to discuss the issue when approached. It told us "all bookings were confidential" before directing us to the Home Office.

It is far from alone in preferring not to answer questions on what has become a scorching political hot potato.

When we approached both UK Hospitality - which represents hotels across the country - and Visit Kent, the county's tourism agency, both were too busy to pass comment.

Yet in an era where the public's spending power has been dramatically eroded by the cost-of-living crisis, soaring mortgage costs and the threat of a long, deep recession lurking just around the corner, it is perhaps not hard to see why some hotel operators might leap at the chance of effectively operating at 100% occupancy for a year with minimal - if any - staff costs to boot.

"Next year we will see our tourism business hit by this..."

But with Kent traditionally poorly served for hotels, there may be a long-term sting in the tail.

"Next year," warns Cllr Lawes, "we will see our tourism business hit by this."

That remains to be seen, but it's hard not to agree it will have some impact.

So what does the Home Office say about all of this? The answer is not a lot.

When pushed on how many hotels it had booked in Kent it refused to answer. Ditto to explain how many hotel rooms it required.

It did, however, insist "we engage with local authorities as early as possible whenever sites are used for asylum accommodation and work to ensure arrangements are safe for hotel residents and local people". Something which the authorities in Kent may take issue with.

A Home Office spokesperson added: “The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain.

“The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable – there are currently more than 37,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £5.6m a day. The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.”

With Afghans in bridging hotels costing £1.2m a day, it brings the total hotel bill for the Home Office to £6.8m a day.

It is, again regardless of your political stance on the issue, a staggeringly high figure.

"What people have forgotten," says Mr Lomas, "is that while the Home Office is spending £6-7m a day housing asylum seekers, that is paying wages for staff at hotels and the hotel itself.

"Food is being ordered in, often from local suppliers, so they'll be getting revenue during a time when perhaps they wouldn't.

"The government would be getting a share of all that. I'd imagine a good 30-40% is actually going back to government coffers through taxes and VAT.

"It's greasing the wheels of the economy."

"When you see the headlines of £7m a day to house these people," says Cllr Lawes, "and people here are struggling to pay their rents, struggling to pay energy bills, they see the unfairness of it all.

"Does it create tension within local communities? Of course it does. It's absolutely appalling."

So why, you might ask, are hotels being used in such a way?

The Home Office has a duty of care to provide accommodation for those after asylum in this country.

Seeking asylum is the process to have your status as a refugee officially recognised. To prove that, you need to demonstrate you are unable to return to your homeland for fear of persecution.

"Does it create tension within local communities? Of course it does..."

The issue is that among those quite justifiably seeking asylum will be others simply seeking to move to the UK to work - migrants. The trick is to determine what camp each applicant falls into.

While the Home Office determines each case they are put up in accommodation and, given the numbers currently crossing the Channel, that is at a record high.

The normal 'accommodation centres' used quickly reached capacity and, as we saw in Manston recently, processing sites found themselves being turned into make-shift accommodation for weeks on end rather than the 24-hour stop-gaps they should be.

When the regular line up of B&Bs are filled as we have seen in recent years, bigger hotels are having to be block-booked to provide the rooms necessary.

Those seeking asylum are not allowed to work while their claims are being processed. And the delay in handling those applications is one for which the government has come in for much criticism.

The British Red Cross explains: "When someone gets refugee status, they can no longer stay in asylum accommodation. They can choose where to live, but they have to pay for their rent or ask for government help – like any UK citizen - but without the family ties or support that many of us take for granted.

"A refugee is assessed against the same criteria as other British nationals. They are not automatically prioritised for any housing they need.

"And the ones turned down? If the Home Office dismisses their case, they have to return to their home country."

Yet while the system is clearly struggling to keep pace with demand, it is, say others, also failing those in this county.

"We can't keep doing this," adds Cllr Lawes. "The process of assessing these people's claims needs to be sped up. If they shouldn't be here they should go, and if they can, then where are they going to go? They'll need housing.

"A refugee is assessed against the same criteria as other British nationals..."

"I think this is all going to come to a head if someone doesn't do something."

Over to you Home Secretary...