A hotel in Banbury that had been used to accommodate people applying for asylum has been taken out of the asylum housing system as part of the government’s latest actions intended to completely stop using asylum hotels.

Banbury House Hotel on Oxford Road in Banbury has provided accommodation to asylum seekers waiting for decisions on their claims since 2022 under a Home Office programme that has attracted controversy.

The government department has stated that all asylum seekers have now been permanently moved elsewhere and the building has been returned to the local community.

This change is part of the government’s efforts to fix the broken asylum system by ending expensive hotel arrangements and bringing in longer-term reforms including faster asylum decisions, more deportations and stronger enforcement.

The Home Office has indicated that the present stage covering 11 hotel closures, which includes Banbury House, will produce yearly savings of almost £65million.

The asylum seekers formerly accommodated in these hotels have been moved to larger, more basic facilities such as Crowborough military barracks, which began operating just three months earlier and at present holds around 350 people referred to as illegal migrants.

Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said that hotels were meant to be a short-term measure under the previous administration, but they became unsustainable, costing taxpayers billions and putting pressure on local communities. He added that the government is getting rid of them by moving people to more basic housing, increasing the size of large-scale facilities, and sending record numbers of those with no right to stay back to their home countries. Norris stated that this is about taking back control, ending wasteful spending, and giving hotels back to the community permanently.

No announcement has yet been made about the Holiday Inn Express asylum hotel on Grenoble Road close to the Kassam Stadium in Oxford.