Holiday Inn Express Birmingham - Castle Bromwich

The Holiday Inn Express in Castle Bromwich is a 3-star IHG property on Chester Road, just off Junction 5 of the M6. The hotel is named in 2025 mainstream press coverage as a Home Office contingency asylum site, with national news pieces describing it as the Castle Bromwich Holiday Inn in Solihull^[1]Press^[3]Press.

On Saturday 23 August 2025 demonstrations against asylum hotels took place across the UK and led to at least 15 arrests. On Sunday 24 August protesters returned outside the Castle Bromwich Holiday Inn Express. Greatest Hits Radio reported demonstrators draped in St George's Cross flags peered through the doors of the hotel and one was seen scaling a ladder to hang a flag on a lamp post by the Holiday Inn sign. The Express & Star and Irish News national wire coverage placed the protests against a backdrop of 111,084 asylum applications in the year to June 2025 and 51,000 outstanding appeals^[1]Press^[2]Press^[3]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[4], an approximately 120-room Holiday Inn Express run at full asylum occupancy implies headline taxpayer exposure of about £20,400 per night and roughly £7.4 million per year. 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.