Sharnbrook Hotel

The Sharnbrook Hotel was built in 2006, with extensions added in 2016, and operated commercially as a 42 en suite room hotel with private gardens, a lounge bar and five function and conference rooms. The site was the second Bedfordshire hotel to close to the public after reportedly accepting a Home Office asylum accommodation contract^[2]Press.

ITV News Anglia reported that a couple whose wedding was cancelled at short notice after the Sharnbrook Hotel was taken over for Home Office asylum accommodation, with the broadcaster covering the upset alongside the wider question of how the site shifted from commercial weddings to contingency housing^[3]Press. The Home Office advised that residents would either be families with children or single females, with no plans to include single males.

In a 3 July 2023 Commons debate on asylum accommodation, the Sharnbrook community was specifically praised for providing a welcoming environment to people housed at the asylum hotel, with Rev Paolo Di Leo and Cllr Doug McMurdo named for their support work; the same debate also recorded calls from members for a reduction in the use of hotels for asylum accommodation^[5]Hansard.

In early 2026, North East Bedfordshire MP Richard Fuller published a statement confirming the Home Office had written to him to terminate the contract with the Sharnbrook Hotel, with the site expected to cease its use as asylum accommodation by mid-June 2026^[4]Council. On 25 June 2026 the Bedford Independent reported that the hotel had officially closed as asylum seeker accommodation, one of four East of England hotels whose Home Office contracts ended that week^[6]Press.

No resident number has been published for this site, so its 42 en suite rooms are used here as an estimate of the peak. At the Migration Observatory benchmark of £170 per person per night^[7], that implied about £7,140 per night and roughly £2.6 million per year while the hotel was in asylum use (February 2023 to June 2026). The May 2025 NAO contract review put the average hotel at about £5.84 million per year^[8]NAO.