It's one of the most exclusive hotels in the world, where a suite can cost £20,000 a night and its flagship restaurant holds three Michelin stars.
asserted
restaurant → cost → stars
But the Connaught in Mayfair also has a new and unwanted accolade: it's the latest location of a squalid camp for homeless migrants.
asserted
it → have → migrants
The Daily Mail has documented the spread of these improvised shanty towns across the centre of London in recent months, most recently telling how the area around Marks and Spencer's flagship store on Oxford Street has become a no-go area at night because of antisocial behaviour by rough-sleeping migrants.
asserted
area → document → migrants
Now we can reveal that a number of migrants are establishing a new camp among the luxury boutiques and restaurants around The Connaught on Mayfair's Mount Street and Carlos Place.
asserted
number → reveal → Street
This week we witnessed these new residents camping in doorways while littering and even using the street as a toilet.
asserted
residents → witness → toilet
The rough sleepers, thought to be recently arrived migrants, assemble in the area around the hotel in the early evening.
asserted
sleepers → think → evening
A group of migrants have set up a new camp outside The Connaught on Mayfair's Mount Street and Carlos Place
Bentleys cruise past immaculate historic Georgian townhouses and now groups of sleeping migrants on Mount Street
asserted
Bentleys → set → Street
The flats above the Dr Barbara Sturm skincare clinic cost £3.7million.
asserted
flats → cost → 3.7million
But at ground level, in the shop's doorway, a migrant is currently living for free
The Connaught is one of the most exclusive hotels in the world, with suites costing £20,000 a night
Just like the office workers hastening to Green Park or Marble Arch stations to make their way home, the rough sleepers too have been busy at work during the day: as beggars.
asserted
sleepers → live → beggars
This is evidenced by homemade cardboard signs.
asserted
This → evidence → signs
One reads: 'Homeless please help me.
asserted
One → read → me
God bless you.
asserted
God → bless → you
Another says simply 'I'm hungry'.
asserted
I → say → ?
By day, Mount Street is a showcase for the sort of London that few can afford: Bentleys cruise past immaculate historic Georgian townhouses, designer boutiques display handbags costing tens of thousands of pounds.
asserted
boutiques → afford → pounds
But by night it begins to resemble more a third world slum.
asserted
it → begin → slum
One man had rigged up a bed outside Tanner Krolle, the renowned luxury leather-goods maker.
asserted
man → rig → Krolle
Another is lying next to a parked Porsche.
asserted
Another → lie → Porsche
Further down Mount Street, on the corner of a fashionable mews beneath spectacular Edwardian sandstone baroque masonry, sits the Dr Barbara Sturm skincare boutique.
asserted
boutique → sit → masonry
The flats above cost around £3.7million.
asserted
flats → cost → 3.7million
But at ground level, in the shop's doorway, a migrant is currently living for free, it seems.
asserted
it → live → doorway
One local office worker, who alerted the Daily Mail to the emergence of the area as a rough sleeping base, said the group has been using surrounding streets and mews passages as an open-air toilet since earlier this month.
asserted
group → alert → month
The Londoner, who has watched the encampment develop over the past two weeks, said the situation is already 'almost as bad as Oxford Street' – and getting worse.
asserted
situation → watch → Street
'This is one of the most expensive and exclusive areas of the country if not the whole of Europe and yet you now have people sleeping in doorways – and just yards from the Connaught Hotel,' he said.
asserted
he → have → Hotel
'It seems unreal.
asserted
It → seem → ?
I cannot believe they have been allowed to set up here and simply stay.'
asserted
they → believe → ?
He said around 15 people have been sleeping across the patch over recent nights, typically arriving from about 7pm before disappearing again at around 7am.
asserted
people → say → am
'They are sleeping in the area west of Berkeley Square around The Connaught, right in the heart of Mayfair,' the worker said.
asserted
worker → sleep → Mayfair
'Everyone grows up knowing Mayfair as the most expensive property on the Monopoly board so it's particularly shocking to see it being treated like a slum.
asserted
it → grow → slum
You have some of the most expensive hotels, restaurants and homes in London around here and yet people are literally having to step over bedding in the doorways.
asserted
people → have → doorways
Other famous establishments nearby include Scott's, the luxury and historic seafood restaurant where advertising guru Charles Saatchi was infamously pictured grasping his then wife Nigella Lawson's neck in 2013.
asserted
Saatchi → include → 2013
Today guests arriving for a dinner reservation would be unable to miss the homeless migrants bedding down for the night.
asserted
guests → arrive → night
The contrast between extreme wealth and apparent destitution is captured starkly in the Daily Mail's photographs taken this week.
asserted
contrast → capture → photographs
But one aspect here is misleading because this destitution is elective: most of those we witnessed here are thought to have actively refused assistance to get them off the streets and into temporary accommodation.
asserted
we → witness → accommodation
Another local restaurant worker said: 'There have been attempts to move them on but they don't want to go.
'
asserted
they → say → them
I have seen these people repeatedly urinating and even defecating in the street.
asserted
people → see → street
They simply go to a quieter corner – one of the mews streets, say – but apart from that small concession to modesty they are perfectly open about what they are doing.
asserted
they → go → what
It's mind boggling when you stop to think where we are – and how inconceivable this would have been just a few years ago.
asserted
this → boggle → ?
Our Edwardian ancestors would not be able to comprehend what is happening.'
asserted
what → comprehend → ?
He recalled a recent 'surreal' incident:
asserted
He → recall → incident
'There was this very posh girl, what they used to call a Sloane Ranger.
asserted
they → be → what
…and 29 more, not listed.
The Aporia
