Hotels used to house asylum seekers are closed

3 hours ago

Andrew DawkinsWest Midlands

News image — Asylum seekers have been permanently moved out of the Goldthorn hotel in Wolverhampton

BBC A hotel site with at least half a dozen silver barriers in front of it. Windows and a door on the ground floor are boarded up on this photo that was taken outside. — Asylum seekers have been permanently moved out of the Goldthorn hotel in Wolverhampton

Two hotels that housed asylum seekers in the West Midlands have closed their doors, the Home Office has said.

The Goldthorn hotel in Wolverhampton and the Grosvenor Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon, are among 13 more in England to have been handed back to communities.

The announcement comes after 11 asylum hotel closures in April and another 20 in June, meaning fewer than 160 were now in use, the government also said.

The two West Midlands sites could "return to business as usual or be transformed for new uses that better serve local communities", it said.

The latest 13 "hotel closures are expected to save taxpayers" £51m, bringing the "total expected savings from this year's closures" to £224m, the Home Office stated.

At a peak in 2023, 400 asylum hotels were in use at a cost of £9m a day, it added.

With "more asylum hotels set to close, the government is instead increasing the use of larger, basic accommodation including former military sites", it said.

In 2023, the then Stratford-on-Avon Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi called for the Grosvenor Hotel to no longer be used as emergency accommodation for asylum seekers.

One side of the hotel site dominates the image, with some of it mainly yellow and another section mainly red on the outside. A second side of the hotel, at right angles to the most visible side, is on the far right of the photo, with silver barriers in front of the building. — The Wolverhampton hotel was among 13 more hotels to have closed their doors to asylum seekers, the Home Office said

Supermarket giant Lidl had resubmitted plans to knock down the former Goldthorn hotel to make way for a new store, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said last month.

Previous plans for the 19th Century hotel were narrowly approved more than three years ago, but permission lapsed this year after the project failed to get off the ground.

On Tuesday, the Home Office said the closures in the West Midlands formed part of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's plans to "restore control to the border and fairness to Britain's immigration system".

This included removing "the incentives that encourage illegal migration and ramping up removals of those with no right to be here", the department said, adding it meant "ensuring sanctuary is provided to those who genuinely need it".

The Home Office added that in recent weeks it had announced discussions had started to explore using three new former Ministry of Defence sites to house asylum seekers.

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