Wool Merchant Hotel, Halifax

The Wool Merchant Hotel was built in the 1870s as a landmark wool exchange and trading hall before conversion into a three star hotel in the late twentieth century. The Grade II listed property has roughly one hundred rooms over four floors and is one of the largest town centre hotels in Halifax. Calderdale was assigned to the Mears Group Yorkshire and Humber accommodation contract from 2019, and the Wool Merchant entered Home Office use in 2022 as the contingency hotel programme expanded across West Yorkshire^[2]Press.

On 16 April 2026 the Home Office announced that the Wool Merchant Hotel would no longer be used to house people forced to flee their homes, naming the site in a press release covering eleven simultaneous closures across England. The press release frames the closures as part of a wider policy to move residents into larger basic accommodation while increasing removals^[1]GOV.UK.

The Halifax Courier and Yorkshire Live both confirmed the local detail that the Wool Merchant Hotel and the Rock Hotel in Holywell Green were the two Calderdale sites included in the round, ending Mears asylum placements in both venues^[2][3]Press.

The Home Office estimates the April 2026 closures will save almost £65 million a year across the eleven sites, implying an average annual run rate of about £5.9 million per hotel before closure^[1]. That is in line with the May 2025 NAO contract review, which put the portfolio average at about £5.84 million per year per hotel^[5]NAO.