Rock Hotel, Halifax

The Rock Hotel sits in Halifax, in the Calderdale local authority area of West Yorkshire. From around mid 2022 the site was contracted to Mears Group under the Yorkshire and Humber Asylum Accommodation and Support Services (AASC) contract, withdrawing the hotel from public booking and using it as Home Office dispersal accommodation^[3]Press.

On 19 April 2026 the Home Office announced eleven hotels would close as part of its plan to end the use of asylum hotels. The Rock Hotel was on the list, alongside other Yorkshire and Midlands sites contracted to Mears or Serco^[1]GOV.UK.

Local press in Halifax tracked the closure and the broader context of Yorkshire and Humber AASC wind down, with Examiner Live and the Halifax Courier both running coverage of the local impact and the hotel's expected return to commercial hospitality^[2]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[4], a hotel of this size run at full asylum occupancy implies headline taxpayer exposure of about £10,200 per night and roughly £3.7 million per year. Across the roughly four years of asylum use that puts cumulative spend in the £10 to £15 million range. The May 2025 NAO contract review put the average per hotel run rate across the wider portfolio at about £5.84 million per year^[5]NAO.