Hotel reopens for business as asylum seekers moved

The government has confirmed asylum seekers are no longer being housed at a Somerset hotel.

The Holiday Inn Express in North Petherton, which had been housing women and children seeking asylum since 2022, has reopened for business.

People living there who had a right to stay in the UK have been moved to alternative accommodation, according to the Home Office.

Somerset councillor Bill Revans, representing North Petherton, said: "I made good friends with some of the people there, I know other people in the community have, it's been an experience to get to know people from other parts of the world and listen to some of the awful situations that they've had to face."

"Some people were uncomfortable with it. I'm not aware of any specific complaints," Revans added. "There were two times a protest was organised and only one person showed up."

The BBC has asked the Home Office how many people were living in the North Petherton hotel, as well as the type of accommodation they have been moved into and where in the country it is located.

Revans said the hotel mostly housed single women and families.

The government has pledged to stop using asylum hotels, a costly form of accommodation that has become a focal point for anti-immigration protests, by July 2029.

Immigration minister Anna Turley said people were now being moved into "larger, basic accommodation like former military sites".

As of March, 20,885 (21%) of asylum seekers in the UK were being housed in hotels and 72,768 (75%) were in other accommodation as they awaited decisions on their immigration status.

The government said 31 hotels were turned back into commercial use in April and June, which will enable them to attract visitors again.

Conservative MP for Bridgwater Sir Ashley Fox said: "I'm glad the [North Petherton] hotel is going back to commercial use. But the real problem is Labour has no plan of stopping the illegal flow of illegal migrants across the channel."

Labour said nearly 70,000 individuals with no right to remain had been removed from the UK since it took office in July 2024.

So far in 2026, 14,819 people have crossed the English Channel by small boat from France - down by 43% for the same period in 2025.

Turley said the government was "overhauling the immigration system to restore control at the border, and fairness to our immigration system".

She added: "For too long, communities in the South West have watched hotels at the centre of their towns and cities become symbols of a broken asylum system.

"We are turning that around by ending the use of asylum hotels for good.

The Hampton by Hilton in Bristol has also been closed to asylum seekers since June.

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