Proposed asylum seeker venue to reopen as hotel

Stradey Park Hotel was a venue for weddings before the Home Office unveiled now abandoned plans to house hundreds of asylum seekers there

A hotel once expected to house hundreds of asylum seekers could reopen as early as next week.

Home Office plans to house 241 people at the Stradey Park Hotel in Llanelli were ditched last October following months protests and opposition from Carmarthenshire council.

The hotel is understood to have undergone renovations since then.

Protestors had called for the hotel to "return to active service as a venue for events and weddings."

"It has been a brutal and distressing 12 months for the people of Furnace village and Llanelli town," said Robert Lloyd from the Furnace Action Committee, which organised the first public meeting to discuss the asylum seeker plan, just over a year ago.

"There is now some light at the end of the tunnel with the anticipated reopening of the hotel."

It is now possible to book a room online starting in the first week of June.

The protests continued until October 2023, when the plans were scrapped

Mr Lloyd said he understood internal renovations were complete and the kitchen was not operational.

All events, including weddings, were cancelled and 95 members of staff were made redundant in July last year after the Home Office announced the asylum plan.

But protestors set up a make-shift camp outside the hotel entrance in a campaign that saw several people arrested.

The policing operation at the Stradey Park Hotel cost Dyfed Powys Police more than £1m.

The owners of the hotel, investment firm Sterling Woodrow based in Essex, have been asked to comment