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.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[6], an estimated 84 asylum seekers (42 en suite rooms with two residents each) implies headline taxpayer exposure of about £14,280 per night and roughly £5.21 million per year. That sits very close to the May 2025 NAO contract review average of about £5.84 million per year per hotel^[7]NAO.