MigrationWatchdog

Asylum accommodation in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

England · South West — asylum support snapshot, as at 30 Jun 2026.

333 asylum seekers were in receipt of Home Office asylum support in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole as at 30 Jun 2026, including 200 in contingency hotels.

333
asylum seekers supported
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
113
in dispersal accommodation
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
200
in contingency accommodation
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
200
of which in hotels
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
20
other or unclassified support
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole ranks #93 of 346 UK local authorities with supported asylum seekers, carrying 0.4% of England's supported caseload — 8.2 per 10,000 residents (against the mid-2025 population estimate of 405,829). South West overview → · Compare all authorities →

The last 12 quarters

711030 Sep 202330 Jun 202630 Sep 2023 — 71131 Dec 2023 — 63031 Mar 2024 — 55530 Jun 2024 — 42130 Sep 2024 — 59731 Dec 2024 — 60731 Mar 2025 — 57330 Jun 2025 — 65230 Sep 2025 — 61831 Dec 2025 — 55531 Mar 2026 — 45030 Jun 2026 — 333
People in receipt of Home Office asylum support in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, quarterly snapshots. Asylum seekers in receipt of Home Office support by local authority, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics).

Down 53% 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 711 (30 Sep 2023) and the lowest 333 (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

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole ranked #57 of 315 authorities with a recorded caseload in 30 Sep 2023, and #93 of 346 now. It has moved down 36 places.

Its own caseload changed by -378 over the same period, against -28,383 across England — 1.3% of that national movement.

Accommodation mix, against England

Accommodation type in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole as a share of its supported population, against England
Accommodation typePeople hereShare hereShare in England
Dispersal accommodation11333.9%72.2%
Contingency accommodation20060.1%20.1%
— of which hotels20060.1%18.5%
Initial accommodation—0%1.6%
Other or unclassified206%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)

400,196
usual residents
Census day, 21 March 2021 · source
15.5%
born outside the UK (61,948)
Census day, 21 March 2021 · source
1.1%
cannot speak English well or at all (4,336)
Census day, 21 March 2021 · source

The legal route, locally

Alongside asylum dispersal, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole has received 4 people through formal resettlement schemes since 2014 (none in the last four published quarters).

four quarters to 2026 Q2, and cumulative since 2014 · source

Language in schools

9,213 pupils in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole's state-funded schools have a first language known or believed to be other than English — 17.6% of the 52,200 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.

academic year 2025/26 · source

When asylum accommodation ends

39 households were owed a homelessness relief duty in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole after being required to leave Home Office asylum accommodation (January to March 2026) — of 414 households owed that duty for any reason. A further 1 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.

January to March 2026 · source

Ranked nearby

Support counts are a point-in-time snapshot by registered address; contingency sites open and close between quarters. Census figures are from March 2021 and predate arrivals since. Numbers say where the asylum system places people — they say nothing about any individual.

Data as of

Cite this page

Asylum accommodation in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Migration Watchdog, data as of 2026-09-02.
https://migrationwatchdog.com/local/bournemouth-christchurch-and-poole
Underlying figures: UK official statistics, re-published under OGL v3.0 — every figure links to its source on the page.

Sources for this page