Mercure Bewdley The Heath Hotel

The Heath Hotel at Habberley Road, Bewdley is a four star Mercure-branded country hotel on the edge of Kidderminster in Worcestershire's Wyre Forest district. Until early 2022 the property operated as a commercial conference and wedding venue with luxury ensuite rooms before being switched into Home Office contingency use under a confidential operator arrangement.

The Express and Star reported in March 2022 that the Kidderminster luxury hotel had been signed up to house asylum seekers after a deal with the Home Office, with residents to start arriving from 21 March 2022. The hotel was used alongside the Gainsborough House in nearby Kidderminster^[1]Press.

Bewdley Town Council issued its own statement noting that the Home Office had informed Wyre Forest District Council about the arrangement, but that neither the town council nor the district council had been consulted on the decision and that the council had no formal role in setting placement policy^[2]GOV.UK.

Wyre Forest MP Mark Garnier wrote in 2024 about meetings with West Mercia Police on the policing of asylum-seeker hotels in his constituency, including the Heath Hotel. The MP cited online unrest in the wider area following the summer 2024 disturbances and reiterated that placement decisions sat with the Home Office rather than local partners^[3]GOV.UK.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[4], an approximately 75 room hotel run at full asylum occupancy implies headline taxpayer exposure of about £12,750 per night and roughly £4.65 million per year. The May 2025 NAO contract review put the average annual run rate per hotel across the wider portfolio at about £5.84 million^[5]NAO.