Chimney Corner Hotel, Newtownabbey
The Chimney Corner Hotel on the Antrim Road in Newtownabbey is one of the hotels in Mears Group's Northern Ireland asylum accommodation portfolio. In 2025 Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council opened a formal planning enforcement investigation into the hotel, after a complaint by DUP MLA Trevor Clarke[1]Press[2]Press.
Capacity
80
rooms
Per night
£170
per resident
Annual
£5.0m
estimated
Background
Northern Ireland is served by a separate regional asylum accommodation contract held by Mears Group, with capacity divided between dispersed flats and a small number of hotels. The Chimney Corner is one of those hotels and provides accommodation to people seeking refugee status from the Home Office. The wider Northern Ireland asylum hotel estate had expanded to nineteen hotels by late 2022, fourteen of them in Belfast[3].
Enforcement investigation
In 2025 DUP MLA Trevor Clarke wrote to Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council's head of planning enforcement asking whether any change of use planning approval had been obtained for the asylum use of the Chimney Corner. Clarke argued that recent High Court decisions had clarified that running hotel asylum accommodation without first securing a change of use through the proper planning process amounted to a planning breach[1]Court[2]. The council confirmed an enforcement investigation had commenced.
Cost analysis
At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark[4], an 80 person site implies headline taxpayer exposure of around £13,600 per night and roughly £5.0 million per year. The May 2025 NAO contract review flagged the Northern Ireland portfolio as small in absolute terms but proportionally high cost given limited dispersed alternatives[5]NAO.
Per-person per-day cost stack (benchmark)
£170- Hotel rate (room + three meals)£10059%
- Weekly cash allowance£74%
- Legal aid & casework£127%
- NHS / interpreter / utilities£1911%
- Contractor / security overhead£3219%
Cost in context
Chimney Corner
£170
benchmark
UK asylum hotel avg
£170
NAO
NI budget hotel
£70
commercial
Hostel bed
£30
commercial
Timeline
Timeline
Pre-2023
Operates as the Chimney Corner Hotel, Newtownabbey
2023
Brought into Mears asylum use
Joins the Northern Ireland regional Mears hotel estate.
2025
Council enforcement investigation
Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council probes asylum use after DUP MLA complaint.
Sources
- Northern Ireland council opens enforcement investigation into hotel housing asylum seekers after DUP complaint — The Irish News, 2025
Reports Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council opened an enforcement investigation into the Chimney Corner Hotel for housing asylum seekers without a documented change of use, after a complaint by DUP MLA Trevor Clarke.
- Antrim and Newtownabbey Council probes hotel being used for asylum seekers — Derry Now, 2025
Confirms the Chimney Corner Hotel in Newtownabbey is providing accommodation to people seeking refugee status from the Home Office and has seen protests, and that DUP MLA Trevor Clarke wrote to the council seeking enforcement action.
- Major rise in hotel use for asylum-seekers: It feels like we are in a prison — The Detail (Northern Ireland), 2022
Investigative report on the expansion of the Northern Ireland asylum hotel estate from 2021 onwards, recording 19 hotels including 14 in Belfast under the Mears regional contract.
- Asylum accommodation in the UK — Migration Observatory, University of Oxford, Aug 2025
£170 per person per day in hotels (2024/25 average); used for per-hotel estimates and food/utilities breakdowns.
- The Home Office's asylum accommodation contracts — National Audit Office, May 2025
222 hotels in use; £1.296 billion annual (2024/25); per-hotel approximately £5.84 million.