Experts decry plans to house UK asylum seekers in barracks as ‘fanciful’ | Immigration and asylum

Refugee organizations have declared plans to house thousands of refugees at two disused military sites as fanciful and too expensive as local discontent grows.

The Home Office confirmed that two barracks: Cameron in Inverness and Crowborough training camp in East Sussex, would be used to temporarily house around 900 men. Authorities are working to identify more sites.

These two areas were used to relocate Afghan families evacuated during the withdrawal from Kabul in 2021. This process ended earlier this year.

Officials say the 900 people will be the first of up to 10,000 people the Home Office hopes to house at military sites, where it is working with the Ministry of Defense to find several more unused sites.

Refugee Council Chief Executive Enver Solomon said plans to house such large numbers of people in barracks were tried and failed by the last government.

“Plans announced by the Home Office to house 10,000 people seeking asylum overnight in military facilities are fanciful, very expensive and logistically very difficult,” he said.

“The government could end the use of hotels next year without resorting to camps, by implementing a one-off scheme that would allow people from countries where they are almost certain to be recognized as refugees to stay for a limited time – subject to strict security checks.

“This will enable people who will ultimately remain in the UK to get on with their lives, find work and contribute to their communities,” he said.

Steve Smith, chief executive of Care4Calais, said Labor had broken its promise to end the use of barracks to house refugees and was exposing taxpayers to increased costs.

“Opening more camps will only serve to re-traumatize more people who have survived horrors such as war and torture. And when you add in the exorbitant costs of setting up such facilities, as the National Audit Office outlined in relation to the canceled project in Wethersfield and Scampton, these camps cost more than the hotels they want to replace,” he said.

The Highland council has accused the UK government of failing to consider the local impact of moving hundreds of refugees to barracks in the center of Inverness.

In a strongly worded statement, he said he had repeatedly asked the Home Office for approval of plans to use Cameron barracks, within walking distance of tourist attractions such as Inverness castle, as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.

A joint statement from council convener Bill Lobban, SNP leader Raymond Bremner and opposition leader Alasdair Christie, published on Tuesday morning, said: “We await further details about how Inverness was selected from other suitable sites and how community cohesion will be maintained given the large number of refugees planned for the local population.

“Our main concern is the impact this proposal will have on community cohesion, given the current size of the proposals. Inverness is a relatively small community, but the potential impact locally and across the wider Highlands does not appear to have been considered by the UK government.”

As of June this year, approximately 32,000 refugees were housed in hotels; That number will exceed 56,000 in 2023, up more than 2,500 from the same point last year.

The expected costs of Home Office accommodation contracts for 2019-2029 have more than tripled from £4.5bn to £15.3bn following what the Commons home affairs committee called a dramatic increase in demand.

Defense minister Luke Pollard suggested on Tuesday that the cost of moving people to bases could be higher than housing them in hotels.

Asked if it would cost more, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that “the public wants to see these hotels close by”.

“We are looking at what is possible and in some cases these bases may create a different cost for hotels, but I think we need to reflect the public mood on this issue. Refuge hotels need to be closed,” he said.