Some of the first group of asylum seekers have boarded the Bibby Stockholm barge with more arrivals expected today, Sky News understands.

Around 50 people were expected to move on to the vessel, docked in Portland Port in Dorset, on Monday after weeks of delays to the plan.

The Bibby Stockholm is one of a number of alternative sites the Home Office is using to end reliance on expensive hotels for asylum seekers, which the government says is costing £6m a day.

It is unclear how many people have moved onto the vessel so far. Charity workers on the ground told Sky News the first arrivals have come from Bristol, Oxford and Torbay but that they had managed to stop nine people coming from accommodation in Bournemouth.

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The 222-bedroom barge will ultimately hold 500 single males, with Home Office minister Sarah Dines suggesting the accommodation could reach full capacity by the end of the week.

Earlier on Monday, she told Sky News the barge “sends a forceful message” that people who cross the Channel will be housed in accommodation that is “proper…but not luxury” – claiming hotels are part of the “pull” factor attracting people to the UK.

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But there has been considerable local opposition to the plan due to concerns about the asylum seekers’ welfare and the impact on local services.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, said: “It seems there’s nothing this government won’t do to make people seeking asylum feel unwelcome and unsafe in this country.

“Reminiscent of the prison hulks from the Victorian era, the Bibby Stockholm is an utterly shameful way to house people who’ve fled terror, conflict and persecution.”

Alongside the barge, the government wants to house people in military sites and marquees.

Multiple reports have also suggested the government is re-visiting plans for a processing centre in Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean if the long-touted Rwanda deportation scheme is not successful in the courts.

Ms Dines would not confirm or deny the plan but said the government was “looking at all options”.

However, Labour has said alternative accommodation should not be necessary, calling on the government to get a grip of the backlog of asylum applications which are over 100,000.

This week is the government’s unofficial “small boats week”, where it wants to talk about its efforts to get a grip on the number of people crossing the English Channel on a small boat.

Total arrivals so far for 2023 stand at 15,071, which is 15% down on last year, the latest figures suggest.

However that is significantly higher than the 10,703 arrivals that had been detected at this point in 2021.