Asylum accommodation in Bedford
England · East of England — asylum support snapshot, as at 30 Jun 2026.
139 asylum seekers were in receipt of Home Office asylum support in Bedford as at 30 Jun 2026.
Bedford ranks #161 of 346 UK local authorities with supported asylum seekers, carrying 0.2% of England's supported caseload — 7.1 per 10,000 residents (against the mid-2025 population estimate of 196,398). No contingency accommodation (hotel or otherwise) is recorded here at this snapshot. East of England overview → · Compare all authorities →
The last 12 quarters
Down 21% since 30 Sep 2023.
Where this sits in the record
Everything here comes from the same published accommodation table as the figures above, across the 12 quarters it covers — so it is available for every authority in all four nations, and no figure is combined with one from a different collection.
Highest and lowest recorded
The highest quarter recorded here is 246 (30 Sep 2024) and the lowest 139 (30 Jun 2026). The latest snapshot is the lowest of the 12. The series starts at 30 Sep 2023, so an earlier or later extreme would not appear in it.
Rank, then and now
Bedford ranked #161 of 315 authorities with a recorded caseload in 30 Sep 2023, and #161 of 346 now. Its position has not moved.
Its own caseload changed by -37 over the same period, against -28,383 across England — 0.1% of that national movement.
Accommodation mix, against England
| Accommodation type | People here | Share here | Share in England |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dispersal accommodation | 119 | 85.6% | 72.2% |
| Contingency accommodation | — | 0% | 20.1% |
| — of which hotels | — | 0% | 18.5% |
| Initial accommodation | — | 0% | 1.6% |
| Other or unclassified | 20 | 14.4% | 6.1% |
Hotels are a subset of contingency accommodation, so the shares do not sum to 100%. Both columns come from the same snapshot of the same table.
Census context (2021)
The legal route, locally
Alongside asylum dispersal, Bedford has received 104 people through formal resettlement schemes since 2014 (none in the last four published quarters).
Language in schools
8,276 pupils in Bedford's state-funded schools have a first language known or believed to be other than English — 25.8% of the 32,056 pupils recorded across the three published language categories (2025/26).
A pupil's first language is not immigration status, and this is not a count of migrant children — most pupils with another first language are British citizens. State-funded schools only.
When asylum accommodation ends
6 households were owed a homelessness relief duty in Bedford after being required to leave Home Office asylum accommodation (January to March 2026) — of 256 households owed that duty for any reason. A further 2 were owed a prevention duty for the same reason.
Households, not people. Prevention (threatened with homelessness) and relief (already homeless) are different duties and are never added together here — a household can move from one to the other.
Ranked nearby
- #158 Chelmsford 143
- #159 Cheltenham 143
- #160 Rochford 141
- #162 Bolsover 138
- #163 Renfrewshire 133
- #164 Tamworth 133
Data as of
Cite this page
Asylum accommodation in Bedford. Migration Watchdog, data as of 2026-09-02. https://migrationwatchdog.com/local/bedford Underlying figures: UK official statistics, re-published under OGL v3.0 — every figure links to its source on the page.
Sources for this page
- Asylum seekers in receipt of Home Office support by local authority, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics) — Home Office · as at 30 Jun 2026 · retrieved 2026-09-02
- Population estimates, local authority based (ONS, via Nomis table NM_31_1) — ONS · mid-2025 · retrieved 2026-09-02
- Census 2021 tables TS004 (country of birth) and TS029 (proficiency in English), England and Wales — ONS · Census day, 21 March 2021 · retrieved 2026-09-02