‘Gobsmacked’ villagers vow to fight revived asylum seeker centre plan
Campaigners who successfully foiled an attempt to relocate migrants to a former military barracks in an isolated North Yorkshire village have expressed deep shock and vowed to renew their fight once the plan is revived.
The government announced on Thursday night that the RAF facility at Linton-on-Ouse will be part of a new scheme to house 3,750 refugees at Ministry of Defense facilities.
The development comes four years after celebrations erupted in the village near York when the then defense secretary Ben Wallace canceled a proposal to host 1,500 refugees at the disused site. The decision follows a high-profile local campaign against the initial plan.
On Friday, Professor Olga Matthias, a prominent figure in the original campaign, reacted with visibly disappointment to the new announcement.
“I can scream. Is that good enough?” he said, adding: “Who knew stupidity had such a long shelf life?”
Speaking to the Press Association, Prof Matthias expressed the widespread disbelief among residents.
“It’s just disbelief, isn’t it? We’re completely baffled. Why are they doing this?”
He confirmed that the latest announcement came without any warning and said: “It fell on everyone yesterday. There was absolutely no consultation by the government, whatsoever.”
Asked whether the Linton Village Action Group believed their fight was over four years ago, Prof Matthias confirmed: “Yes, we did. For all the reasons we won the campaign last time – infrastructure, dentistry, floods, isolated, no public transport.”
He pointed out that local opportunities have become even smaller: “There was a village shop. Now there is no village shop. We have cars, it is our choice to live here, but what do you do if you don’t have a car, if you have no hope?”
Prof Matthias also stated that the facility has been decommissioned since 2022, and some former military houses have been renovated and sold.
“The site has deteriorated significantly,” he explained. “It was already a dangerous place, because there’s toxic waste everywhere, there’s asbestos. In fact, there’s no electricity in the area, no water, no telephone lines. So, if the costs were prohibitive before, now they’re going to be astronomical.”
He gave a scathing assessment of the Government’s fiscal approach: “The astronomical costs incurred in spending taxpayers’ money do not bother this Government.”
Prof Matthias recalled that the government spent millions on the previous plan, including millions paid to the private company that was planned to run the migrant centre.
“Probably the most surprising thing might be that the same civil servants are dealing with this this time,” he predicted.
Questioning the Home Office’s logic, Prof Matthias said: “So why is the Home Office considering doing this? God knows. It seems to me that it’s important for this Government to appear to be doing something. Let’s hope this is the 35th U-turn, or whatever they’ve done so many times.”
Despite their previous success, the action group was never officially disbanded, although Prof Matthias admitted: “We actually did not believe that it would rear its head as a viable possibility again.”
He concluded with a defiant message: “But we have to fight because someone decided they needed to speak up and decided they needed to be seen to do something. They’re going to spend time and energy and money trying to convince us all that we’re wrong, they’re right, and then, like I said, there’s probably going to be a U-turn and they’re not going to do it.”
Prof Matthias also raised concerns about staffing, given the remote location of the facility. “It’s an isolated place. Who’s going to come to these country roads for a minimum wage job?”
When initial plans were announced in April 2022, the Home Office stated that the facility would provide “safe and affordable” accommodation for single adult men seeking asylum in the UK and meeting the eligibility criteria.
Senior officers were grilled for two hours by residents at a heated village meeting; where one local described the community as “in crisis.”
Before the previous plan was abandoned, the local authority had threatened a judicial review and Rishi Sunak, then the North Yorkshire MP and Tory leader candidate, had vowed to scrap the proposal if it entered Downing Street.
