UK Home Office to Replace Asylum Hotels with Military Sites and Pop-Up Cabins by 2026

The UK Home Office is making a dramatic pivot in how it houses asylum seekers, abandoning the costly and widely criticized hotel system in favor of Home Office-managed Inverness military sites and modular pop-up cabins. Starting in early December 2025, a former military property in the Scottish Highlands will become the first official transitional accommodation under this new strategy, confirmed by Highland Council on October 16, 2024. The move isn’t just logistical—it’s financial, moral, and political. With hotels costing six times more than alternatives and the system drowning in a 130,000-case backlog, the government is betting big on repurposed infrastructure to cut costs and regain control.

Why Hotels Became a National Scandal

Just five years ago, most asylum seekers lived in private rentals. That changed after 2020. The housing market collapsed under pressure, landlords pulled out, and the National Asylum Seeker Support Service (NASS) couldn’t scale fast enough. By March 2025, one-third of all asylum seekers—33.3%—were stuck in hotels, according to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. London alone housed 28% of applicants by late 2024, and its hotel usage actually rose, even as other regions cut back. The cost? An average of £119 per night per person. Multiply that by 12,000 people on any given day, and you’re looking at £1.4 billion a year. That’s more than the entire annual budget of some UK local councils.

And here’s the twist: the Home Office didn’t just accept this. They tried to patch it. Between April 2024 and March 2025, they squeezed more people into each room—from 1.8 to 2.3 on average—and renegotiated contracts to lower the nightly rate from £162. It helped, but barely. The system was still bleeding money. And people were suffering. Families crammed into single rooms. Children missing school. Adults unable to access legal aid or language classes because hotels were scattered, disconnected, and often in remote areas with no public transport.

The Military Site Strategy: A Radical Reversal

The solution? Go back to the past. Former military bases. Abandoned barracks. Quiet, empty sites that once housed soldiers, now repurposed for people fleeing war and persecution. The Home Office’s plan, confirmed in internal documents reviewed by the Migration Observatory, aims to eliminate hotel accommodation entirely by the end of Q4 2026. The Inverness site is just the beginning. No other locations have been named, but the scale of the ambition is clear: they’re preparing to house thousands in modular cabins and converted military housing across England, Scotland, and Wales.

The math is irresistible. Where hotels cost £119 a night, these alternatives are estimated at £20–£30. That’s a £700 million annual saving. And it’s not just about money. The Home Office’s Asylum Accommodation and Support Services (AASS) contract now explicitly lists decommissioned military sites and pop-up cabins as core components. These aren’t temporary fixes—they’re designed to last. Some cabins can be assembled in weeks. Some barracks have running water, heating, and security already installed. The goal is stability, not just savings.

What Experts Are Warning

But here’s the catch: this isn’t a magic bullet.

Migration Observatory researchers from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at Oxford have issued a stark warning: isolating asylum seekers in remote military sites risks repeating the same mistakes. Hotels were criticized for social isolation. So are barracks. Without integrated health services, English classes, legal support, and community access, these sites could become new kind of detention centers—just without the fences.

Highland Council’s statement is telling. They didn’t endorse the plan. They simply acknowledged it: “This property will be used as transitional accommodation.” No celebration. No press release. Just a quiet, cautious nod. That’s because local services in Inverness aren’t ready. There are no additional funding streams for social workers, school placements, or mental health support. And the 12-month limit? That’s a red flag. Transitions shouldn’t be temporary. They should be pathways.

The Bigger Picture: A System in Crisis

This isn’t just about accommodation. It’s about a system that’s been broken for years. The asylum backlog—130,000 applications waiting for decisions—hasn’t shrunk. The Home Office hasn’t hired enough caseworkers. The courts are backed up. People wait years just to get an answer. Meanwhile, they’re housed in places that don’t help them integrate, learn, or heal.

And the geographic imbalance? It’s still there. London, the South East, and the East of England absorb nearly half of all asylum seekers, even though dispersal policy was meant to spread them evenly. By 2024, only 5% lived in large-scale facilities like barracks. Now, the government is trying to flip that number. But without local authority buy-in, without funding for schools and GPs and translators, it’s just moving the problem from one building to another.

What’s Next?

The next 12 months will be critical. If the Inverness site opens on schedule and runs smoothly, expect similar sites in former RAF bases in Yorkshire, decommissioned army depots in Wales, and unused naval housing in Portsmouth. But if families are left without childcare, if children miss school for months, if mental health crises go unaddressed—public backlash will come fast. The Home Office isn’t just changing where people sleep. They’re changing how society treats the vulnerable.

And here’s the quiet truth: no one is asking asylum seekers if they want to live in a former military base. They’re just being told where they’ll go. The real test won’t be the cost savings. It’ll be whether these new homes become places of dignity—or just another kind of limbo.