Home Office eyes up three more military sites to house thousands of asylum seekers

The Home Office will increase the use of former military facilities to house thousands of asylum seekers while closing unpopular asylum hotels.

Ministers have allocated three new former Ministry of Defense sites (MoD Bicester, MoD Barnham and MoD Linton-on-Ouse) to accommodate approximately 3,750 refugees. The Home Office said on Thursday that authorities had begun talks to use the sites but had not yet received planning permission and the plans would face local opposition.

Officials sought to use former RAF base Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire to house refugees under the previous Conservative government in 2022 before the Ministry of Defense backed down on the plans.

Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, said he opposed the use of RAF Barnham, near Thetford, and that housing asylum seekers there would “impact on safety, services and cohesion”.

The Home Office already uses the former “prison-like” RAF base Wethersfield in Braintree, Essex, to house migrants and plans would see it increase the number of bed spaces at the disputed site from 800 to more than 1,200.

Minister Alex Norris defended the move to larger venues, which are often more costly than hotels, and said they would help “reduce the pull factors” for immigrants coming to the UK.

But refugee aid organizations condemned the decision, saying the former military installations “cause deep and long-lasting harm to people”. [asylum seekers’] Imran Hussain, director of external relations at the Refugee Council, said ministers were “repeating policies that have failed in the recent past”.

Kamena Dorling, policy director at the Helen Bamber Foundation, said: “These areas are extremely isolated, resemble prisons with barbed wire and surveillance, and lack privacy.

“For survivors of conflict, persecution, torture and human trafficking, being forced to live in such conditions further exacerbates existing trauma and can have devastating consequences on their mental and physical health, including depression, suicidal ideation and self-harm.”

Charlotte Khan, head of public relations at Care4Calais, said: “We have supported people in these camps in places such as Napier, Penally, Wethersfield and now Crowborough. Our experience on the ground has shown that these military camps are detrimental to the health and wellbeing of refugees. For survivors of torture and modern slavery, they are re-traumatising.”

Ministers will also seek to extend the use of Wethersfield beyond 2027 and the former army camp Crowborough in East Sussex to 2023.

Twenty more hotels have closed, including The Bell hotel in Epping, Essex, which is a target of anti-immigrant protesters in 2025, as the Home Office seeks to end the government’s dependence on expensive accommodation. There are currently approximately 21,000 refugees living in hotel accommodation.

The hotel in Epping was closed earlier this month due to fire safety concerns. The local council had previously taken the Home Office to court in an attempt to remove asylum seekers living there, saying it was a “breeding ground for unrest”, but failed after a High Court judge ruled the migrants should stay.

Mr Norris said: “We promised to close all asylum hotels and return them to the communities, and we are doing that. Twenty more hotels have closed and hotel numbers have more than halved since the peak. Instead, we are moving asylum seekers to former military sites, which are very different from the hotels the last government left us.”

The Home Office has spent around £7.5 million on the Crowborough site so far and Clearsprings Ready Homes currently has a 12-month contract to run the site, where asylum seekers can stay for up to 82 days.

After this, people move into dispersed accommodation, such as multi-occupancy houses. Approximately 500 refugees live in the Crowborough army camp, with a maximum capacity of 540 people in the camp.

Clearsprings, owned by Graham King I became a billionaire last year Due to increasing profits, it also manages the Wetherfield facility.

Some of the 20 hotels closed by the Home Office since April include the Holiday Inn Ashford Central in Kent, the Best Western Atlantic in Chelmsford, The Collection Hotel in Birmingham, Allerton Court in Northallerton, the Best Western in Wembley, the Delta Hotel Cheshunt in Hertfordshire and the Mercure George in Reading.

There are just under 170 shelter hotels currently in use.