Britannia Hotel Manchester (Watts Warehouse), Portland Street

The hotel is housed in the Watts Warehouse, a Grade II star listed building completed in 1856 as Manchester's largest wholesale textile warehouse. The building was converted to hotel use in the 1980s and operates as the Britannia Hotel Manchester, with 363 bedrooms.

From 2020 onwards a substantial share of the rooms have been block booked by the Home Office for asylum accommodation as part of the Britannia chain Home Office portfolio described by UnHerd in 2024^[2]Press.

In March 2024 Byline Times published a long form investigation into the Britannia chain's asylum estate, describing the chain as voted the UK's worst by Which? while making tens of millions a year from Home Office contracts. The piece centred on a year long resident at the Britannia Hotel Manchester on Portland Street who described conditions characterised by charities as harmful and reported a mental health crisis driven by the length of stay^[1]Press.

The Byline Times reporting echoed long standing concerns raised by Manchester refugee charities about food quality, isolation and access to healthcare across the Britannia chain.

UnHerd's August 2024 asylum hotel tycoon profile of Britannia owner Alex Langsam named Portland Street alongside the Adelphi in Liverpool and the Country House at Didsbury as flagship North West sites in his Home Office portfolio^[2]Press.

Wikipedia confirms the Britannia chain operates the Watts Warehouse as the Britannia Hotel Manchester with 363 rooms, and that several Britannia properties have been used by the Home Office for asylum block bookings during the small boats peak^[3]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[4]and a 363 room block booking, the Britannia Manchester implies headline taxpayer exposure of around £61,700 per night and roughly £22.5 million per year. That is well above the May 2025 NAO portfolio average of about £5.84 million per hotel per year, reflecting the unusual scale of the site^[5]NAO.