Best Western Long Eaton, Bostocks Lane

The Best Western Long Eaton sits on Bostocks Lane in Sandiacre, immediately west of Long Eaton town centre and within Erewash borough. The site has been used by the Home Office as contingency asylum accommodation under the East Midlands Asylum Accommodation and Support Services contract held by Serco for more than three years, putting its asylum start in early 2022. Reports through 2025 and 2026 placed the resident headcount at around 160 to 161 single adult males^[4]Press.

Together with the neighbouring Novotel, Bostocks Lane was widely treated by national and local press as a single twin site asylum cluster, with combined headcount across both hotels reported in some accounts as around 400 residents before the Novotel closure.

The neighbouring Novotel Nottingham Derby on the same Bostocks Lane was closed to asylum use at the start of July 2024 following a sustained campaign led by then Erewash MP Maggie Throup. Throup hailed the Novotel closure as a triumph and publicly stated her attention would now turn to lobbying ministers for the closure of the Best Western on the same road^[1]Press.

When the Novotel contract ended, more than 100 people sought homelessness support from Derbyshire authorities after being required to leave Home Office accommodation, with 105 households recorded as needing assistance. Other Novotel residents were dispersed to alternative asylum accommodation outside Erewash^[3]Press.

In 2024 Erewash Borough Council debated whether to formally lobby central government for a timeline to end asylum use of the Best Western, but rejected the motion. Councillors and the County Council have continued to call for an exit timeline, including formal demands made through 2025 for the Home Office to confirm a closure date for the Bostocks Lane site^[2]Press.

The council briefly considered a High Court injunction against asylum use of the site, in line with similar bids by other English councils in 2022 to 2024, but no injunction proceedings were filed. The Home Office has publicly stated it intends to close every asylum hotel before the end of the current Parliament without naming a Bostocks Lane exit date.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[5], a headcount of 161 residents implies headline taxpayer exposure of around £27,370 per night and roughly £10 million per year. Across more than three years of asylum use the cumulative spend is well over £30 million on the site alone before considering the parallel Novotel period. The May 2025 NAO contract review put the average per hotel run rate across the wider portfolio at about £5.84 million per year^[6]NAO.