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Hotel ProfileReported asylum use2024 protest flashpointUpdated May 2026

Holiday Inn Express London Gatwick – Crawley

The Holiday Inn Express at Haslett Avenue East / The Squareabout in Three Bridges, Crawley (RH10 1UA), has been reported as refugee/asylum accommodation. On 9 August 2024 it was the focus of a protest met by a counter-protest of around 500 people[1]Press. It is a separate hotel from the larger Arora Hotel Gatwick Crawley, which we cover separately.

2 min readUpdated May 2026Share:XWhatsApp
Reported asylum use (not officially confirmed)

Capacity

138

rooms (commercial)

Per night

£170

per resident

Annual

£8.6m

estimated

Background

The Holiday Inn Express London Gatwick – Crawley is a roughly 138-room budget hotel at Haslett Avenue East / The Squareabout in Three Bridges, near Crawley town centre and Gatwick Airport. Crawley has been one of the larger asylum-hotel towns in the South East: Home Office figures reported 432 asylum seekers in Crawley hotels at the end of December 2024, across all of the town's contingency hotels[2]Press.

The 9 August 2024 protest

On 9 August 2024, during the wave of hotel-focused protests that summer, the Holiday Inn Express in Three Bridges was the target of a demonstration. An anti-racism campaign live report named the hotel (Haslett Avenue East, RH10 1UA) as being used to accommodate refugees and recorded a counter-protest of around 500 people[1]Press. The Home Office has not publicly named this hotel as asylum accommodation, and the operator, resident numbers and start/end dates are not confirmed in public sources.

Cost analysis

No site-specific cost figure has been published, so the following is an illustrative benchmark only. At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory figure[3], a roughly 138-room hotel at full asylum occupancy would imply order-of-magnitude exposure of about £23,000 per night. The May 2025 NAO contract review put the average per-hotel run rate across the portfolio at about £5.84 million per year[4]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

HIX Gatwick Crawley

£170

benchmark

UK asylum hotel avg

£170

NAO

Crawley budget hotel

£75

commercial

Hostel bed

£30

commercial

Timeline

Timeline

  1. Pre-2024

    Operates as a commercial Holiday Inn Express at Three Bridges, Crawley

  2. By Aug 2024

    Reported as refugee/asylum accommodation

    Named by an anti-racism campaign source as housing refugees.

  3. 9 Aug 2024

    Protest and counter-protest

    Protest met by a counter-protest of around 500 people outside the hotel.

  4. After 2024

    Status not officially confirmed

    Home Office has not named the site; operator and dates unconfirmed.

Sources

  1. Stop the far right: live reports, 9 August 2024 Stand Up to Racism, Aug 2024

    Stand Up to Racism's live report names the Holiday Inn Express at Haslett Avenue East / The Squareabout, Three Bridges, Crawley (RH10 1UA) as a hotel used to accommodate refugees, targeted by a protest met by a counter-protest of around 500 people on 9 August 2024.

  2. Fewer asylum seekers in Crawley living in hotels Sussex Express, Mar 2025

    Home Office figures reported by the Sussex Express show 432 asylum seekers accommodated in Crawley hotels at the end of December 2024 - a town-wide total across all Crawley contingency hotels, not a single-site figure.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

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