Mercure George Hotel, Reading

The Mercure George Hotel sits on King Street in the heart of central Reading, near the Oracle shopping centre and Reading railway station. The Grade II listed property has a long history as a Berkshire town centre coaching inn and latterly traded as a Mercure-branded mid market hotel.

From March 2020 the Home Office moved around 80 asylum seekers and refugees into the George Hotel as part of its pandemic response, with residents transferred from accommodation in eight other UK cities and towns, mainly London. Healthwatch Reading visited the hotel four times and spoke to 43 residents from 19 different countries speaking 16 different languages^[2]GOV.UK.

The Healthwatch Reading insight report identified significant healthcare failings: 57 per cent of residents were still not registered with a GP four months after arrival, several people had had their Home Office weekly allowance stopped, and the move to the hotel had caused unsafe breaks in ongoing treatment and access to regular medication^[2]GOV.UK.

Berkshire Live followed up in 2021 reporting that asylum seekers at the hotel had been left without medication for weeks, citing the Healthwatch findings as evidence of a broken health pathway in Home Office hotel accommodation^[3]Press.

In August 2021 the George was approached by the Home Office again, this time to house Afghan refugees evacuated under Operation Pitting. Berkshire Live reported that a family who had booked the hotel for Reading Festival had their stay cancelled at short notice, with the hotel saying it had agreed to take in the refugees in view of the humanitarian crisis^[1]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[4]and a peak headcount of around 80 residents, headline taxpayer exposure runs at roughly £13,600 per night and about £5 million per year of contract value. That is broadly in line with the May 2025 NAO contract review average of about £5.84 million per year per hotel^[5]NAO.