Best Western London Queens Hotel, Crystal Palace

The Queens Hotel is a Victorian property on Church Road in Crystal Palace, partly within the London Borough of Croydon. Investigative reporting tracks its asylum use from a 2014 Home Office contract under the Eurohotels brand, with housing inspectors at the time finding 600 people living in the 98-room building. The site was absorbed into the Best Western franchise in 2019 with the original operator continuing to run it^[4]Press.

In 2021 a fresh Home Office contract was awarded with Clearsprings Ready Homes running day to day operations. More than 450 refugees have been housed at the hotel since late 2021 while waiting for asylum claims to be processed^[1]Press.

South London News reported in 2024 that the hotel was being partly emptied after multiple allegations of sexual offences by hotel staff. The reporting referred to an alleged rape of a 12 year old girl and to assaults said to have involved 17 different members of staff, with around 300 refugees moved to alternative accommodation while investigations ran^[1]Press.

Subsequent local reporting, including the News from Crystal Palace ward update, referred to dreadful conditions inside the hotel including alleged rape, alleged assault and a suicide attempt^[2]Press.

In March 2024 Croydon Council granted further planning permission to extend the Queens Hotel by adding more rooms, despite the safeguarding picture inside the existing building. A ward councillor sought additional planning conditions to protect asylum-seeking residents on the new floors^[2]Press^[3]Press.

At the £170 per-person per-night Migration Observatory and NAO benchmark^[5][6]NAO, the Queens Hotel run at the reported peak of 450 plus residents implies headline taxpayer exposure of about £76,500 per night and roughly £27.9 million per year of live use, putting it among the highest single site costs in the London asylum estate.