OYO Rowton Hotel, Birmingham

The Rowton Hotel sits at 145 Alcester Street in Highgate, just south of Birmingham city centre. It was first opened in 1903 as a Lord Rowton lodging house for up to 800 working men, listed Grade II in 1982, and acquired by hoteliers in 1993 before later being franchised under the OYO budget hotel brand. The property was advertised for sale in early 2022 in coverage that confirmed it was being used to house asylum seekers^[1]Press.

Insider Media reported in 2024 that formal go-ahead was being sought for the continued use of half the space at the Grade II listed Rowton Hotel for asylum-seeker accommodation. The hotel, managed under a Serco contract, had given over its first and second floors from 16 October 2023, with the report describing the initial use as unauthorised before a change of use application was submitted to Birmingham City Council^[2]Press.

The change of use application sought formal planning permission for the partial conversion of the listed building into asylum-seeker accommodation. Birmingham City Council's planning processing of that application sat alongside its own broader concerns about the West Midlands hotel cluster, which already included properties such as the Ramada in Sutton Coldfield and the Birmingham Strathallan in Edgbaston.

An archived UK Government and Parliament petition was opened in 2024 calling on the Home Office to review and move asylum-seeker accommodation at the Rowton Hotel. The petition has since been archived but remains on the public record as an indicator of the local political pushback to the placement^[3]GOV.UK.

The Migration Observatory benchmark of £170 per person per night^[4]implies that even a partial fit out across the first and second floors of the Rowton, at around 200 single room occupancy, costs the taxpayer roughly £34,000 per night and about £12.4 million per year. Half floor occupancy at around 100 residents implies about £6.2 million per year, in line with the May 2025 NAO contract review average of £5.84 million per year per hotel^[5]NAO.