Legal challenge over plan to use East Sussex army camp as asylum housing dismissed | East Sussex
A group of local residents has lost a high court challenge against a Home Office decision to use an army training camp to house refugees.
Crowborough Shield, a group of concerned residents, has launched a legal challenge after receiving more than £100,000 in crowdfunding legal fees following the government’s announcement of Crowborough army training camp being used as accommodation for asylum seekers.
They launched their challenge in December after the Home Office said in October it was considering housing up to 540 men at the facility in East Sussex. The Ministry of Internal Affairs did not proceed with the plan until January, when 27 men were housed in the camp.
In his judgment on Friday morning, Mr Justice Mold ruled in favor of home affairs minister Shabana Mahmood that residents could not object to a decision before it was formally made.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Alex Goodman KC from the group told the court that getting the site ready for use was part of the decision-making process.
The Home Office defended the objection, with its lawyers saying at the hearing in London that the objection was “misunderstood” and “premature”.
In his ruling on Friday, Mold said the challenge was “really premature” as there was “no clearly established policy for the use of the camp as accommodation for asylum seekers” at the time the legal action was taken.
The judge said the objection was “based on a number of assumptions and is significantly speculative”, adding that the group had “jumped the gun”.
He said a new legal challenge could be discussed in the period since the interior minister’s decision was made, focusing on issues that concern residents.
Crowborough Shield executive Kim Bailey said the group would continue to fight the case. “What happened in today’s decision was a technical issue. This is just another step in the process. We will be re-submitting our objection to the decision to house asylum seekers in Crowborough over the next few days.”
Owned by the Ministry of Defence, the property is 400 meters from Ashdown Forest, home to the Dartford warbler, European nightjar and great crested newt, all of which are protected under UK and international law. It forms part of a specially protected area, an area of special scientific interest and a special conservation area.
Residents have staged protest marches for 16 consecutive weeks against the Home Office plans. In their legal challenge, they argued that the government adopted a secretive process to authorize the project, which amounted to an abuse of the home secretary’s powers, a breach of conservation rules, and that the government relied on emergency planning powers, known as Q-class, without disclosing the details.
Crowborough Shield supporters said in a statement released ahead of the high court hearing: “Many of these men are likely to have survived war, torture, human trafficking and suffer from PTSD. But the government plans to place them in a military environment surrounded by gunfire from nearby police training facilities and public shooting ranges that could re-traumatise the people they are supposed to protect.”
In a statement responding to Friday’s decision, a spokesman for Wealden district council in the Crowborough district said: “We are disappointed with today’s decision to refuse approval for a judicial review of the government’s decision to house asylum seekers at Crowborough army camp on the grounds that it was premature.
“The council strongly opposed the use of the site for this purpose and argued that the government was wrong to grant them planning permission, had not been transparent in its decision-making process and that a decision had been reached without appropriate involvement and consideration of local community and environmental impacts.
“We will now seek urgent legal advice to consider the issues raised in the decision.”
