Asylum Seeker Hotel Closes Down at Deptford Bridge Lewisham 2026

Key Points

• A South London hotel previously used to accommodate asylum seekers has been closed down by the Home Office and returned to local community use.
• The Staycity Apartments Deptford Bridge in Lewisham is one of 13 hotel accommodation sites across England exited by the government in its latest round of closures.
• Nationwide, 31 asylum seeker hotels have been closed since April, reducing the remaining total of operational contingency hotels to 160.
• The Home Office estimates that exiting these 13 properties will yield £51 million in taxpayer savings, taking total expected savings from hotel closures this year to £224 million.
• The site will now either resume standard commercial operations as an aparthotel or be repurposed for wider community and commercial use.
• Refugee rights organisations and legal experts have raised concerns regarding the sudden relocation of vulnerable families during the rapid decanting process.

Lewisham (South London News) August 12, 2026 – A South London asylum seeker hotel in Lewisham has officially ceased operations and is set to be returned to community use following a formal government directive to end the reliance on temporary hotel accommodation. The Staycity Apartments Deptford Bridge site was confirmed as one of 13 hotel properties across England handed back to local communities in the government’s latest tranche of contract exits. The site, situated adjacent to Deptford Bridge station, will now either resume normal trading as a commercial aparthotel or be repurposed for new community-focused initiatives.

The latest round of contract terminations brings the total number of asylum hotel closures to 31 since April, leaving 160 sites currently active across the United Kingdom. Official figures released by the government indicate that the exit from these 13 sites is projected to deliver £51 million in savings to the public purse, bringing the cumulative expected savings from hotel closures throughout this year to £224 million.

This reduction forms part of an overall reduction of nearly £1 billion in asylum accommodation expenditure since July 2024.

Which hotel has been closed in South London and what will happen to the site?

The facility affected in South London is the Staycity Apartments Deptford Bridge, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. The property comprises 98 modern studio and one-bedroom apartments equipped with self-catering kitchen facilities and laundry amenities.

Situated near Deptford Market Yard and local transport connections to central London and Canary Wharf, the building had been contracted by accommodation providers acting on behalf of the Home Office to house individuals awaiting decisions on their asylum applications.

Following the termination of the Home Office contract, ownership and operational management of the property revert to the commercial domain. According to official announcements from the UK government, the returned properties can now resume business as usual, attracting paying guests, supporting local hospitality employment, and boosting footfall for surrounding shops, cafés, and local services.

Alternatively, local authorities and property owners have the option to explore converting such facilities for long-term community or residential purposes, depending on regional planning permissions and commercial agreements.

Why is the government closing asylum hotels across the country?

The exit from the Staycity Apartments Deptford Bridge forms part of a national strategy aimed at overhauling the asylum accommodation model and ending the usage of contingency hotels entirely. According to official government statements, the reliance on hotel accommodation peaked in 2023, when roughly 400 hotels were operational at a daily cost to taxpayers of £9 million.

The Home Office attributes the current acceleration of hotel closures to a series of operational reforms implemented across the immigration system.

These measures include a significant increase in the volume of asylum claims processed, the implementation of a new 24-week target for deciding asylum and immigration appeals for individuals in accommodation, and the removal of nearly 70,000 individuals who did not possess legal status to remain in the United Kingdom.

By clearing backlog cases and relocating remaining applicants to alternative forms of accommodation, such as dispersed housing and large-scale sites, ministers aim to restore fiscal efficiency and public confidence in the border control framework.

What legal and humanitarian concerns have been raised regarding the closures?

While government officials emphasize financial savings and policy execution, legal representatives and refugee support charities have voiced significant concerns regarding the speed and management of the decanting process.

As reported by Diane Taylor of The Guardian, Ralitsa Peykova, a solicitor at Deighton Pierce Glynn, stated that

“we have had to issue urgent legal proceedings because our clients are being moved from one hotel to another without any evaluative assessment of their needs.”

Charities working directly on the ground in Lewisham have similarly highlighted the practical difficulties faced by displaced families who were housed at the Staycity facility.

As reported by Diane Taylor of The Guardian, Chloe White, the executive director of Action for Refugees in Lewisham, stated that

“with successive hotel closures, families are being ripped away from communities, support systems and specialist care at short notice.”

Specific individual cases have illustrated the operational strain on affected residents. As reported by Diane Taylor of The Guardian, an asylum seeker named Huda, whose 12-year-old daughter relies on a wheelchair and suffers from epilepsy and a heart condition, stated that

“the room in the new hotel they have moved us to is so small I have to change my daughter’s nappies in the corridor.”

Addressing these operational criticisms, official government representatives maintain that statutory care obligations continue to be upheld during transfers. As reported by Diane Taylor of The Guardian, a Home Office spokesperson stated that

“this government will close every asylum hotel, and work is well under way to move asylum seekers into more suitable accommodation. The welfare of asylum seekers remains a priority, and we will continue to work closely with providers to ensure that additional needs are accommodated and to minimise disruption wherever possible.”

Broad consensus exists across the political spectrum that long-term hotel usage is unsatisfactory for all parties. As reported by Good Morning Britain, Enver Solomon, the Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, stated that all hotels should close within six months, warning that they are costly and risk fuelling community tensions.

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What is the background to the government’s asylum hotel closure policy?

The systematic housing of asylum seekers in commercial hotels became widespread under the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (AASCs) administered by corporate providers including Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group, and Serco. Following statutory obligations established under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office is required to provide accommodation to destitute asylum seekers while their applications are processed.

Historically, asylum seekers were housed predominantly through residential dispersal programmes in low-cost housing across regional local authorities.

However, a sharp growth in application backlogs during the pandemic, combined with processing delays, resulted in accommodation providers increasingly relying on contingency hotel contracts. At the end of March 2020, approximately 5 per cent of supported asylum seekers resided in contingency hotels; by early 2025, that proportion had expanded to roughly 35 per cent, encompassing over 32,000 people.

In response to rising operational costs and public debate over hotel usage, successive Home Secretaries introduced ‘Full Dispersal’ policies and committed to closing all asylum hotels by the end of the current Parliament.

The current strategy shifts reliance away from high-cost commercial hotels toward a combination of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs), family residential units, and consolidated large-scale accommodation sites.

How will this hotel closure impact local residents, businesses, and asylum seekers?

The closure of the Staycity Apartments Deptford Bridge and similar facilities across the country carries distinct implications for local communities, economic stakeholders, and asylum seekers.

For the Lewisham and Deptford Bridge community, returning the 98-room property to standard commercial use is expected to generate positive economic spillovers.

Local traders in Deptford Market Yard, nearby eateries, and neighbourhood services stand to benefit from the return of short-stay tourists, business travellers, and visiting families. Re-establishing standard commercial operations provides regular commercial revenue, supports hospitality employment, and helps restore local footfall in South East London.

From an administrative perspective, exiting hotel accommodation alters the distribution of demand on municipal resources. Local council services, healthcare providers, and community education providers in Lewisham may see a reduction in immediate emergency support demands associated with temporary hotel populations.

However, as asylum seekers are redistributed into dispersed residential housing across various local authority areas under the Full Dispersal policy, municipal bodies across England will continue to coordinate local healthcare, schooling, and integration support through government dispersal grants.

For asylum seekers, the closure of contingency hotels represents a major transition in their daily living conditions. While moving out of hotel rooms into self-contained residential housing or large-scale sites offers greater independence and kitchen access in the long term, short-notice transfers can cause temporary disruption to medical treatments, legal representation, and children’s schooling.

Moving forward, the impact on this demographic will largely depend on the efficiency with which the Home Office and its accommodation providers conduct individual vulnerability assessments prior to relocation.