Macdonald Tickled Trout Hotel, Samlesbury

The Tickled Trout is a long-established Macdonald Hotels property on the Junction 31 island of the M6, immediately south of the River Ribble crossing into Preston. It has 72 bedrooms and a large conferencing and weddings function, and had operated as a commercial hotel for decades before the MoD deal.

The Lancashire Evening Post first reported in June 2025 that the hotel had stopped taking public bookings and events, and that the Ministry of Defence would use the site under the Afghan Locally Employed Staff Relocation Scheme to house former Afghan forces and their families^[1]Press.

Blog Preston reported in June 2025 that the arrangement is a private deal between the Ministry of Defence and Macdonald Hotels, structured as a temporary measure to house Afghans who supported British troops. Lancashire County Councillor Luke Parker confirmed that the placement is exclusive to Afghans who assisted the UK Government in frontline roles and that the MoD provides basic provisions, employment support, healthcare, education and orientation while families are placed permanently across the UK^[2]Press.

The Commons Library research briefing on the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme treats this stream of accommodation as policy and operationally distinct from Home Office asylum dispersal. ARAP and ACRS beneficiaries are granted indefinite leave to remain on entry, not the temporary section 95 support that asylum seekers receive^[4]GOV.UK.

In autumn 2025 several small protests were held in central Preston and outside the Tickled Trout itself, conflating the site with the wider asylum hotel debate. The Lancashire Lead and Blog Preston published explainers stressing that Lancashire has no Home Office asylum dispersal hotels, that the Tickled Trout is exclusively for Afghans who served with British forces, and that the residents are not asylum seekers^[3]Press.