National Hotel, Muswell Hill

The National Hotel sits on Queens Avenue, just off Muswell Hill Broadway in north London, in the London Borough of Haringey. It is a small Edwardian property that operated as a commercial hotel before being contracted by Clearsprings Ready Homes for use as asylum-seeker contingency accommodation under the Home Office regional contract.

In December 2022 the Hackney Gazette reported that seven asylum seekers housed in the National Hotel had been sent letters by the Home Office informing them they would be moved to Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent. Local campaigners called the move shameful and warned that transferring vulnerable residents from a small hotel into a contested mass accommodation site would worsen wellbeing^[3]Press.

Haringey Council issued a joint statement saying it was appalled at the decision and that it had not been consulted, with the council leader telling Local Government Chronicle the borough had been treated as an afterthought^[2]GOV.UK^[4]Press.

In April 2024 Haringey Community Press reported that closure of the hotel as Home Office accommodation was imminent, with Haringey Council confirming the borough had been supporting residents at the site for almost three years. The Home Office and its provider Clearsprings Ready Homes wound down the contract during 2024^[1]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[5]and a steady headcount of around 24 residents, accommodation contract value runs at roughly £4,080 per night and about £1.5 million per year. Smaller hotels typically have higher per-person overheads than the £5.84 million per year average reported by the May 2025 NAO contract review across the wider portfolio^[6]NAO.