Asylum seeker hotels had 'spiralled out of control' as 11 more are closed

A further 11 hotels used to house asylum seekers have closed.

The new closures include the Britannia Hotel in Wolverhampton and the OYO Lakeside in St Helens.

Both drew protests last year.

The Holiday Inn Heathrow in Hillingdon is among the 11 that closed.

Borders minister Alex Norris said hotels were meant to be “a short-term stop-gap” but had “spiralled out of control, costing taxpayers billions and dumping the consequences on local communities”.

He said: “We are shutting them down by moving people into more basic accommodation, scaling up large sites, removing record numbers of people with no right to remain.

“This is about restoring control, ending waste and handing hotels back to the community for good.”
Ministers have pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the next election.

Some people have already been moved into different sites, such as disused army barracks.

At the end of 2025, the number of people being housed in hotels stood at 30,657.

This was a 15% decrease since December, but above the record low of 29,561 prior to the 2024 general election.

In September 2023, the figure peaked at 56,018.

The number of people in “dispersal accommodation” rose by almost 3,000 over 2025.

This type of accommodation typically includes privately managed houses, flats or rooms in properties of multiple occupancy.

It is only available to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute
“Most asylum seekers are illegal immigrants.

Keir Starmer has let in more small boat illegal immigrants than any Prime Minster in history and numbers are 45 per cent up since the election.

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“The Conservative plan is to leave the ECHR so that illegal immigrants are deported within a week of arrival - not put up in hotels to apartments.

But Labour is too weak to do that.”
The full list of the 11 no longer suitable to house asylum seekers is as follows: