Chatsworth Hotel, Hastings

The Chatsworth Hotel sits on Carlisle Parade overlooking the Hastings seafront. From late 2022 the building was contracted to Clearsprings Ready Homes under the South East AASC contract and used to house asylum seekers transferred from the Manston processing centre during the autumn 2022 backlog crisis^[1]Press.

Middle East Eye published a long-form report from inside the Chatsworth Hotel in 2023, documenting mould, leaking ceilings, cold rooms, restricted food and other horrendous conditions described by Manston transfer residents^[1]Press.

SussexLive ran parallel local coverage in 2023 with first hand accounts from residents and charity volunteers, focused on the physical state of the building and the lack of Home Office or Clearsprings response to repeated maintenance complaints^[2]Press.

The asylum contract at the Chatsworth Hotel ended in February 2024 after roughly sixteen months of Clearsprings use. In summer 2024 the Hastings Independent Press reported the property had been sold to Buckswood School for educational redevelopment, closing the chapter on the building's brief asylum use^[3]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[4], housing around 80 residents implies headline taxpayer exposure of about £13,600 per night and roughly £4.1 million per year at full occupancy. Across the sixteen months of asylum use that puts cumulative spend in the £5 to £6 million range. The May 2025 NAO contract review put the average per hotel run rate across the wider portfolio at about £5.84 million per year^[5]NAO.