Six former military sites earmarked to house migrants
SIX disused military sites have been slated for conversion into camps to house up to 30,000 Channel migrants.
The sites include former Army bases and it is hoped they will be cheaper than the £3million a day being spent on accommodating more than 26,000 asylum seekers in hotels.
They will go ahead if a pilot camp for 1,500 in a former RAF base in North Yorkshire works, says the Home Office.
Residents and councillors campaigning against the Yorkshire scheme were told six more sites had been earmarked by senior Home Office officials at a crunch meeting.
Kevin Hollinrake, the local Tory MP leading opposition to the plan, said he had warned colleagues that he would not be “the only one who will have this problem in their constituency”.
The camps are thought to be an alternative to purpose-built asylum reception centres envisaged by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and modelled on a camp in Greece that she has visited.
These multimillion pound centres are, however, said to have been vetoed by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor on the basis of cost.
Mr Hollinrake, a member of the Commons Treasury select committee, said such a centre placed in a strategic location would be a better idea than the “ludicrous” proposal for a camp in Linton-on-ouse, where 600 villagers face being outnumbered three to one.
The camp will have its own GP and dental service, full-board catering, a multi-faith area and a seven day a week “recreational programme including
indoor and outdoor physical and social activities”, gym and shop. There will be a lounge area with television and internet access, a library and resource centre and a larger screen for films.
Serco, the commercial operator, will also be running two minibuses on twice daily trips to York. Asylum seekers would not be restricted to the site but there will be daily ID checks with the site policed through external and internal CCTV, a controlled access point and thrice daily security perimeter patrols.
Its opening at the end of May was postponed to the end of June but since the launch of the Tory leadership race preparation work has been put on hold.
Mr Sunak’s proposal to put migrants on cruise ships has been widely derided while Liz Truss’s Tory leadership campaign declined to say whether she would press ahead with asylum camps.
The Home Office said it remained committed to “asylum reception centres” as part of a strategy to reduce the £3million a day hotel bill. A further £2million is being spent on housing Afghan refugees in hotels.
A spokesman said: “We are overhauling the entire, broken asylum system to ensure asylum seekers are not housed in hotels costing the UK taxpayer almost £5million a day.
“This urgent work includes our Migration and Economic Development
Partnership with Rwanda, our new Borders Act, a fairer asylum dispersal system and plans for asylum reception centres,” he said. “We are also expanding our immigration detention facilities, to remove those with no right to remain in the UK.”
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said it was “deeply concerned” about the use of large-scale accommodation centres as an alternative to being housed in the community.
“The well-documented impact of using a disused military barracks to house people seeking asylum clearly shows why this kind of accommodation should not be an option,” he said.
More than 15,400 migrants have so far crossed the Channel this year, nearly double the rate at the same point last year when more than 28,000 reached the UK.