Extra security has been placed around the 70-bedroom Dragonfly hotel in Peterborough where up to 146 male asylum seekers have been housed since last November.
Despite the city’s two Labour MPs, Sam Carling and Andrew Pakes, telling the Government “the Dragonfly is the wrong hotel, in the wrong location and bad for Peterborough and nearby residents” there has been no indication of when it will cease to be used.
“We are a welcoming city but are playing more than our part already,” say the MPs.
“We will continue to make this case until the hotel is closed down and the Serco contract, signed by the last Conservative Government when the Mayor (Paul Bristow) was an MP, is ditched.”
Key points:
Security is part of the overall accommodation cost — the Home Office pays per person, per night to its main contractors (like Serco, Mears, or Clearsprings). This fee includes:
- Room rental from hotel owners (like Surya Hotels who own the Dragonfly)
- Food and basic amenities (sometimes)
- 24/7 security staff and fencing if needed
- Transport and on‑site support staff
Typical cost per person per night:
- A 2023–24 National Audit Office (NAO) report estimated the average cost of hotel-based asylum accommodation was £120–£150 per person per night.
- Of this, security costs alone typically run £15–£25 per night per person when 24-hour guards and fencing are used.
Total scale:
- In 2023–24, the UK spent about £8 million per day on hotel accommodation for asylum seekers — over £2.9 billion a year, with security and site management being one of the largest cost drivers after rent itself.
FOI requests by the BBC and The Times found that the Home Office pays millions each month to private security firms (like Mitie, G4S, or Serco’s own staff) to patrol sites.
Who pays?
The UK Home Office pays for all these costs, funded by taxpayers.
- The Home Office does not pay hotel owners directly for security — instead, the main contractor (Serco, Mears, Clearsprings) is responsible for providing security as part of its Asylum Accommodation and Support Services Contract (AASC).
- That contractor then hires private security sub-contractors or deploys its own teams and installs fencing or CCTV if required.
- Local councils do not pay these costs, but they do handle any extra local policing, housing checks, or safeguarding support, which can cause friction when local resources are tight.
Dragonfly Hotel
While there’s no line-by-line public breakdown for the Dragonfly Hotel:
- If it hosts ~140 people at ~£120–£150 per night each, the total cost could be £16,800–£21,000 per night for accommodation including security.
- Fencing hire, security staff and CCTV could easily make up ~15–20% of this cost.
So, taxpayers may be funding £2,500–£4,000 per day just for the extra security and access control at a single site of this size.
✅ Who pays? — The Home Office (taxpayers) via major private contractors.
✅ How much? — Often £15–£25 per person per night for security alone, with fencing, CCTV, and 24-hour guards bundled in.
✅ Why? — To meet legal safeguarding duties, manage protests, and protect vulnerable people in hotels never designed for this role.
Who Are Surya Hotels, owners of the Dragonfly
- Surya Hotels Limited is a privately held UK hotel group founded around 2010, operating roughly 13–14 boutique or budget hotels across areas like East Anglia and Surrey—including the Dragonfly Hotel in Peterborough
- The company is incorporated and headquartered in Harwich, Essex under company number 07241976. It reported a turnover of £25.5 million for the year ending December 2023, with net assets around £11.7 million and approximately 413 employees
- Company leadership includes directors Harjit Singh Dulai, Sukhjit Singh Dulai, and Raymond James Dowsett
Home Office Asylum-Seeker Contracts
- The Dragonfly Hotel is operated under contract with Serco, a major Home Office service provider. Surya Hotels leases or supplies the facility, while Serco manages operations and care services for asylum seekers
- The Home Office’s latest major framework contract— “Contingency Accommodation and wraparound services”—is worth £552 million across regions, running from April 23, 2025, to August 2029, and was awarded to Corporate Travel Management (North) Ltd, not to Serco or Surya Hotels directly
How Much is Surya Hotels Making?
- There are no public records specifying how much Serco pays Surya Hotels for use of the Dragonfly property.
- Surya Hotels’ most recent annual revenue is around £25.5 million but the proportion derived from the asylum agreement is not disclosed.
- The Home Office does publish total contract values for service providers like Serco or Corporate Travel Management, but it does not break down payments to hotel owners, such as Surya Hotels.
FOI requests by the BBC and The Times found that the Home Office pays millions each month to private security firms (like Mitie, G4S, or Serco’s own staff) to patrol sites such as the Dragonfly hotel in Peterborough.
