Watermill Hotel, Paisley

The Watermill Hotel sits in Paisley, Renfrewshire, a short drive from Glasgow Airport. It is one of at least 15 hotels used in Scotland by Mears Group on behalf of the Home Office for asylum-seeker contingency accommodation, alongside the Muthu Glasgow River in Erskine, the Learmonth and Piries hotels in Edinburgh, and several Glasgow city centre properties^[3]Press.

In August 2023 STV News reported that the Home Office had told Mears it would maximise use of all procured contingency accommodation in Scotland, including by implementing a mandatory room sharing policy at the Watermill Hotel. The Home Office confirmed that room sharing was not optional, although families would not be expected to share with other families and single male and female residents would be kept separate^[2]Press.

The Gazette reported that the policy could increase the number of asylum-seeking adults living in Renfrewshire contingency hotels from 220 to 300, prompting concerns from councillors and elected members about the appropriateness of forcing strangers to share rooms in a previously contracted single occupancy setting^[1]Press.

Renfrewshire Council elected members raised the room sharing policy at full council and through public statements, with the local debate sitting alongside the wider Scottish controversy over the increasing use of hotels for asylum seekers, including high profile sites such as the Muthu Glasgow River in Erskine^[3]Press.

At the £170 per person per night Migration Observatory benchmark^[4], the existing 220 asylum-seeker headcount across the Renfrewshire contingency hotels implies a combined taxpayer exposure of about £37,400 per night and roughly £13.6 million per year. Increasing the headcount to 300 under the new sharing policy lifts that figure to about £51,000 per night and £18.6 million per year^[5]NAO.