Just two weeks ago Epping lost its court battle to shut the Bell Hotel and expel unwanted asylum seekers from the town. Now it seems the state has decided to punish the town for its act of rebellion. Eight properties in the town are to be converted to ‘Houses in Multiple Occupation’ (HMOs) and will be used to house asylum seekers. The properties have been acquired by Clearsprings Ready Homes, which describes itself as ‘a provider of accommodation services to the Home Office’. The firm chose to join the legal battle over the Bell Hotel, no doubt because it had an interest in housing migrants in Epping.
This is a multibillion pound industry which only exists because of successive UK government failures
Locals are furious. Chris Whitbread, leader of the council, has written a letter to the Prime Minister, Home Secretary, Housing Secretary and Justice Secretary in which he describes his ‘sense of disbelief’ that Clearsprings are planning to house yet more asylum seekers in Epping. He goes on to remind ministers of the great harm done to Epping by asylum seekers, beginning with the partial destruction of The Phoenix hotel ‘at the beginning of this year in an arson attack perpetrated by one of the residents’. Whitbread goes on to describe the ongoing ‘severe public protests, disturbances, ongoing demonstrations and significant community tensions…since the arrest and conviction of Hadush Kebatu’ for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old local girl, all of which was exacerbated by Kebatu’s accidental release and two days at large.
The letter goes on to state that the impact of ‘housing of asylum seekers in within our district is hard to overstate’ and that the ‘last year has been catastrophic for our community, with fear, anxiety and protests spilling out from Epping’. Whitbread concludes his letter by pleading with ministers to ‘intervene and stop this ludicrous proposal before it goes any further’.
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When I asked the Home Office for comment they told me that they ‘are furious at the level of illegal migrants and asylum hotels in this country’ and that they ‘will close every asylum hotel and we are working to move asylum seekers into more suitable accommodation such as military bases, to ease pressure on communities across the country’. While I understand that the government intends to move towards using military and industrial sites and temporary facilities, HMOs remain a substantial part of the asylum housing system.
In truth, HMOs used to house asylum seekers are no more popular than hotels. Earlier this year there were weeks of anti-HMO protests in Waterlooville and protests against a proposed HMO in Darlington. Meanwhile in July, two migrants in Nuneaton were charged following the rape of a 12 year old girl. One of those men has just pleaded guilty to the crime. The leader of the council alleged he had been told one of the men had been living in a house of multiple occupancy.
But not everyone hates HMOs. Three private companies, Serco, Mears and Clearsprings are contracted by the Home Office to provide ‘Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts’ (AASCs). These firms make a fortune from housing asylum seekers, with the National Audit Office estimating that taxpayers will spend £15.3 billion on this over 10 years. In many ways it’s easy money. The government is guaranteed to pay its bills, and the companies which manage the HMOs are recording healthy profit margins which have risen from an average of 4 per cent in 2020 to 9 per cent in 2024.
Clearsprings, the company building HMOs in Epping, is a particularly modern, British success story. It’s a privately-owned company whose sole business appears to be operating ‘ten year contracts with the Home Office for the provision of asylum accommodation, support and transport services in the South of England and Wales’. In January 2019 Clearsprings signed new ten-year contracts with the Home Office, meaning its business is guaranteed until 2029. These contracts have been astonishingly lucrative.
According to its published accounts, in the year ending January 2020 it produced £796,304 in profit on £67m of revenue. By the year ending January 2024 the business had metastasized, generating £62.5m of pre-tax profit on almost £1.4 billion of revenue. The business is lean. Over that same period operating profit per employee has risen from around £6,000 to almost £300,000. In its annual report the company notes that it has benefited from ‘political and economic upheavals in many countries’ and a ‘high number of asylum applications’ within the UK.
Clearspring published a list of its shareholders in 2016. At that time the company was entirely owned by three people. Whoever owns the business now, they have done very well out of the small boats crisis, and the British taxpayer. In just the last four years £182 million of dividends have been paid.
This is despite the firm encountering legal problems. In 2021 it was found guilty of letting an HMO in Newport, Wales, without a licence. Then, in 2023, Swindon council believed that HMO properties managed by Clearsprings in Swindon were in such poor condition that enforcement action was justified. The council brought charges against Clearsprings, relating to five HMOs. The company attempted to dismiss the charges on the basis that it was not the legal ‘manager’ of those properties. When the magistrates disagreed, the company went further, seeking a judicial review, which was rejected late last year.
It appears Clearsprings often recruits property owners for HMOs. The firm is the subject of regular discussion in landlords’ groups online. It’s easy to understand why property owners are tempted by these lucrative, apparently risk-free deals, even if some do express moral concerns. But ultimately they are benefiting from a vast, and unnecessary transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to private business. I understand that there is a profit-sharing agreement in place under which Clearsprings has returned £33 million to the Home Office, but the details of this contract have not been made public.
Even so, this is a multibillion pound industry which only exists because of successive UK government failures. Ministers, local councils and the public may be dismayed when record small boats arrivals are reported, but for firms like Clearsprings, Serco and Mears, it’s good for business. In Serco’s latest half year 2025 results, they noted that ‘underlying organic growth’ (i.e. more migrants arriving) had cushioned their migration business from other pressures.
Companies like this aren’t really ‘free market’ in any sense. They’re paid vast sums of taxpayers’ money because the UK has lost control of its borders and is apparently unwilling to change the law or its international obligations. For make no mistake, this asylum system, like all of mass migration, is a choice. At present the UK is choosing policy which leads to crime, increases the cost of housing and harms the social fabric while transferring billions to private companies who’ve won the right to milk taxpayers. This is no way to run a country.
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