ibis Stevenage Centre, Danestrete

The ibis Stevenage Centre is a three-star Accor budget hotel on Danestrete in the SG1 1EJ postcode, sharing the central Stevenage retail block with the Westgate Shopping Centre and within five minutes' walk of Stevenage railway station. The site sits opposite the Stevenage Borough Council civic offices, putting the council's planning officers within direct sight of the building.

The Ibis is one of two Stevenage hotels in Home Office contingency use, alongside the Novotel Stevenage at Knebworth Park near junction 7 of the A1(M).

HertsLive (the Hertfordshire Mercury) reported in December 2022 that the Home Office had moved 178 asylum seekers into a town centre hotel near the Westgate Shopping Centre with just 24 hours notice; it did not name the hotel, but the 178 it reported matches the Ibis's maximum bedspace in the council record^[1]Press. The council's own record of 7 December 2022 gives 178 as the hotel's maximum bedspace, so the figure is a capacity, and it records a Home Office pledge that the Ibis would be used for the purpose only until 16 December 2022^[7]Council. That pledge was not kept: The Comet reported in February 2026 that the Ibis is one of the main sites housing asylum seekers in Stevenage^[3]Press.

In 2023 The Comet covered a public order protest outside the hotel, with anti-asylum demonstrators gathering on Danestrete and a counter-protest forming on the opposite pavement. Hertfordshire Police made no arrests, but issued dispersal notices in the area^[2]Press.

The town centre Ibis on Danestrete sits inside a wider two-hotel cluster with the Novotel Stevenage at Knebworth Park. The Comet reported in August 2025 that the two hotels were being used to accommodate a total of 322 asylum seekers, in a sentence that calls it the highest for any borough or district in Hertfordshire, so it is a figure for Stevenage as a whole with no split between the hotels^[8]Press. In February 2026 it reported 274 asylum seekers across Stevenage on 31 December 2025^[3]Press.

In 2025 The Comet reported that Stevenage Borough Council had launched a planning enforcement probe across both town hotels. The council argued the long-term Home Office contracts had moved the operation away from a hotel use class and into the territory of a hostel, which would require fresh planning permission. Both Clearsprings Ready Homes (the Home Office contractor) and the freehold owners were notified of the council's position^[4]Council.

No count of residents has been published for the Ibis on its own. The council's record gives it a maximum bedspace of 178, a capacity and not a headcount, and the 322 the Comet reported is a figure across Stevenage, so no nightly or annual cost is estimated here. The Migration Observatory benchmark is £170 per person per night^[5], and the May 2025 NAO contract review put the average per hotel run rate across the portfolio at about £5.84 million per year^[6]NAO.