The government has announced asylum seekers will no longer be housed in almost a dozen hotels across the country
Olivia Bridge Reporter in Live News Network
20:26, 14 Apr 2026
The Citrus Hotel is one of 11 that will no longer house asylum seekers(Image: Google Maps)
A Cheltenham hotel is one of 11 that will no longer provide shelter for asylum seekers as the Government moves hundreds into alternative spaces such as military barracks across the UK.
Earlier today (Tuesday, April 14), ministers announced the number of hotels currently tasked with supporting asylum claimants will drop, with 11 hotels across the country told they will no longer participate in the scheme.
On the list includes the 15 Citrus Hotel in Cheltenham. Several other hotels across the UK will also cease to offer shelter, some of which became the subject of controversy and headlines as protesters demonstrated outside such as the Britannia Hotel in Wolverhampton and the OYO Lakeside in St Helens.
At the peak, around 400 hotels were used to house asylum seekers under the Conservatives, which has now dropped to less than 190. Ministers say the move will save the public purse £65 million a year.
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.”
The Home Office said further closures would be announced “soon”. It says hundreds of people have already been moved into alternative sites, with 350 alone relocated into the former barracks at Crowborough, in East Sussex, which opened to asylum seekers in January.
By the end of last year, the number of asylum seekers being put up in hotels stood at 30,657, down 15 percent on September but still above the record low of 29,561 just before the 2024 general election. Figures peaked in September 2023, where there were 56,018 in hotels. At the same time, the number of people in “dispersal accommodation” rose by almost 3,000 over 2025.
Part of the dispersal accommodation includes privately managed houses, flats or rooms in properties of multiple occupancy, and is only available to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “The truth is, the most recent figures show there are more asylum seekers in hotels than at the time of the election. And that’s despite the Government shunting people from hotels into residential apartments to hide what is going on. Those apartments are then not available for young people struggling to get on the housing ladder.
“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% up since the election. The Conservative plan is to leave the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) 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 BBC reports that the hotels that have been closed to asylum seekers are:
Banbury House Hotel – Banbury, OxfordshireMarine Court Hotel – Bangor, Ards and North Down15 Citrus Hotel – Cheltenham, GloucestershireHoliday Inn Heathrow – Hillingdon, LondonBritannia Hotel – WolverhamptonMadeley Court Hotel – Madeley, Telford & WrekinOYO Lakeside – St Helens, MerseysideCrewe Arms Hotel – Crewe, Cheshire EastSure Hotel by Best Western – AberdeenThe Rock Hotel – Halifax, CalderdaleWool Merchant Hotel – Halifax, Calderdale