Kings Gap Hotel, Hoylake

The Kings Gap Hotel sits at the junction of The Kings Gap and Stanley Road in Hoylake, an affluent town on the north coast of the Wirral peninsula. The building previously traded as a Holiday Inn Express but moved into Home Office asylum use from September 2020 under Serco's North West regional Asylum Accommodation and Support Services contract. The use of Wirral hotels for asylum accommodation was raised in the House of Commons by Birkenhead MP Mick Whitley in an adjournment debate on 25 May 2023^[1]GOV.UK.

On 29 July 2025 a peaceful protest took place outside the hotel after reports that the Home Office planned to change the residents from asylum-seeking families to single males. Wirral Council said it strongly opposed the plans, and council leader Paul Stuart wrote to Wallasey MP Angela Eagle demanding a Home Office review of the decision^[2]Press.

On 31 July 2025 Merseyside Police arrested a 25 year old man from Sefton outside the hotel on suspicion of inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organisation, alongside three further arrests for public order offences^[3]Broadcast.

In November 2025 a BBC News investigation, syndicated by Yahoo News, found that one of Dr Faisal Maassarani's companies spent about £3.5 million buying the Kings Gap Hotel that month. Maassarani became connected to a network of firms that took over several Serco-contracted hotels from 2022 onwards^[4]Broadcast.

The BBC investigation also linked the same network to an alleged illegal eviction attempt at Parliament Place in Liverpool, where about 116 asylum seekers were reportedly lined up to move in shortly after long term tenants were told to leave for fire safety works. Optimus Hotel Management, of which Maassarani is a director, has since taken a loan secured against the £3.5 million Kings Gap property^[4]Broadcast.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[5], an estimated 150 single male residents imply headline taxpayer exposure of about £25,500 per night and roughly £9.3 million per year. Across more than five years of asylum use, cumulative spend at the benchmark rate would be well over £40 million for this site alone. 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.