Daresbury Park Hotel and Spa, Halton

The Daresbury Park is a four-star conference and spa hotel set in parkland near the village of Daresbury in Halton borough, immediately south of Warrington and accessed from Junction 11 of the M56. As Halton Borough Council notes, the location of asylum accommodation is set by the Home Office, and the council has no power to direct it^[4]GOV.UK.

Like several other large conference hotels in the North West, Daresbury Park was taken into the asylum estate during the 2020 Covid expansion, when the Home Office leaned heavily on private contractor Serco to absorb a fast-rising backlog. Capacity was reported to have reached up to 420 beds at peak before the contract was wound down^[3]Press.

The Home Office ended its contract with Daresbury Park in spring 2025 after more than five years of contingency use, with remaining residents relocated to other parts of the asylum estate outside Halton borough^[4]GOV.UK. By December 2025 Warrington Worldwide reported that the hotel was undergoing a multi-million-pound refurbishment, with operators preparing to return the site to commercial trade in March 2026 as part of the Elite Venue Selection portfolio^[1]Press.

In February 2026 the operator publicly addressed the migrant-hotel period in response to boycott threats, framing the previous use as a closed chapter ahead of reopening^[2]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[5], a peak headcount of around 420 residents implies headline taxpayer exposure of about £71,400 per night and roughly £26 million per year at full occupancy. Five years at that scale puts cumulative spend at well over £100 million, although the actual run rate varied with occupancy. 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.