Mayfair's £1,000-a-night five-star Connaught Hotel has some uninvited guests on its doorstep... migrant rough sleepers using the street as an open air toilet

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.But the Connaught in Mayfair also has a new and unwanted accolade: it's the latest location of a squalid camp for homeless 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.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.This week we witnessed these new residents camping in doorways while littering and even using the street as a toilet.The rough sleepers, thought to be recently arrived migrants, assemble in the area around the hotel in the early evening.A group of migrants have set up a new camp outside The Connaught on Mayfair's Mount Street and Carlos PlaceBentleys cruise past immaculate historic Georgian townhouses and now groups of sleeping migrants on Mount Street The flats above the Dr Barbara Sturm skincare clinic cost £3.7million. But at ground level, in the shop's doorway, a migrant is currently living for freeThe Connaught is one of the most exclusive hotels in the world, with suites costing £20,000 a nightJust 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.This is evidenced by homemade cardboard signs. One reads: 'Homeless please help me. God bless you. Thank you.' Another says simply 'I'm hungry'.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.But by night it begins to resemble more a third world slum.One man had rigged up a bed outside Tanner Krolle, the renowned luxury leather-goods maker. Another is lying next to a parked 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.The flats above cost around £3.7million. But at ground level, in the shop's doorway, a migrant is currently living for free, it seems.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.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.'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.'It seems unreal. I cannot believe they have been allowed to set up here and simply stay.'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.'They are sleeping in the area west of Berkeley Square around The Connaught, right in the heart of Mayfair,' the worker said.'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.'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.'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.Today guests arriving for a dinner reservation would be unable to miss the homeless migrants bedding down for the night.The contrast between extreme wealth and apparent destitution is captured starkly in the Daily Mail's photographs taken this week.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.Another local restaurant worker said: 'There have been attempts to move them on but they don't want to go.'I have seen these people repeatedly urinating and even defecating in the 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.'It's mind boggling when you stop to think where we are – and how inconceivable this would have been just a few years ago. Our Edwardian ancestors would not be able to comprehend what is happening.'He recalled a recent 'surreal' incident: 'There was this very posh girl, what they used to call a Sloane Ranger.'She was walking down Mount Street with a flute of champagne in her hand – which I guess she had cheekily taken with her when they were moving from one bar to another.'She was at the head of a group of friends from the same set and she was half turned back talking to some behind her when this guy loomed up in front of her so she almost bumped into him – and he started shouting at her in a foreign language.'And she was clearly taken aback. I heard her saying to her friends afterwards "Who are these people?" And it's a good question because they do behave as if this is their home and that we are intruding on it.'I've had abuse from them before. If you ask something politely you just get "no English, no English". But then if you persist they will get lairy and start swearing at you.'Guests arriving at The Connaught are unable to miss the homeless migrants bedding down for the night just a few yards away The homeless migrants can be seen camping in doorways, littering and even using the street as a toiletThe worker added: 'It is ridiculous that this is allowed to go on.'Another office worker pointed out: 'If someone was trying to sell a flat around here, imagine bringing prospective buyers along and having to step over people sleeping in the doorway.'And it feels like the tip of the iceberg. This is Mayfair. If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.'The scenes come just days after the Daily Mail revealed how groups of beggars and rough sleepers had established makeshift sleeping areas along Oxford Street.There, men were photographed gambling through the night with large bundles of cash outside M&S, while witnesses complained of public urination, defecation, aggressive begging and drinking.That encampment was said to be cleared each morning before shoppers arrived, with some members of the group moving between Oxford Street, Marble Arch and Park Lane.A number of the men and women are suspected of pickpocketing during the day.Some rough sleepers are believed to use their position on the street as a cover to manipulate and even rob passers-by.Previously we have highlighted other similar camps including a major and very visible cluster of tents on London's Euston Road as well as groups of homeless delivery riders living in tents and makeshift camps in trendy Shoreditch and north London's Clissold Park.Fed-up local residents at these sites have complained of dumped food, rats and human excrement.But researchers say that across London, numbers of rough sleepers, despite becoming more visible, are showing signs of decline.Across the capital, outreach teams found 3,959 people sleeping rough between April and June this year – a fall of 10 per cent on the same period in 2025.Of those, 1,685 were new to the streets, while 680 were classed as living on the streets and a further 1,645 were recorded as intermittent rough sleepers, according to figures from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network.It is understood that some homeless people in the UK, such as migrants with a precarious immigration status, reject outreach programs and fall outside numbers reported by authorities.The issue of homelessness has become a political hot potato after Mayor Sadiq Khan pledged during his 2024 re-election campaign to end rough sleeping in the capital.The Conservatives, who now run Westminster Council, previously took aim at Labour for their failings in cleaning up the homeless issue on Oxford Street.Disputes over who owns particular stretches of land has led to difficulties in removing disruptive beggars from certain areas. The Mayfair camp is close to another one outside M&S on Oxford Street, where men were photographed gambling through the night with large bundles of cash One resident of the central London slum village is pictured using the street as a toilet Homelessness charities, meanwhile, have warned that rough sleeping remains 'extremely high by historic standards' and argue that long-term prevention, housing support and emergency provision are all needed to bring numbers down.The causes of homelessness are notoriously complex but the single most common trigger is believed to be losing a job at short notice – and with most Britons having only the equivalent of a month's salary in savings millions of people are in a potentially precarious position.While those who arrive from overseas without an established support network are even more likely to end up on the streets if work falls through.Westminster Council and the London Mayor's Office were contacted for comment, as were all of the businesses mentioned.