The Home Office is considering three new asylum camps capable of holding around 3,750 men. It will not say how many it plans to place at each one.
Its own documents give away how long they could stay. MoD Bicester and MoD Barnham are planned to run for at least ten years, while Linton-on-Ouse is planned for at least three.
Ten years is not temporary. It is not overflow while a few hotels close. Bicester and Barnham could still be operating after two more general elections.
Reports say the Bicester site, near Piddington, could hold up to 1,250 single men. Only 370 people lived in the Oxfordshire village at the last census.
Villagers have responded with a symbolic threat to leave the United Kingdom. In a ballot on whether to hold an independence referendum, 96 per cent of those voting backed the idea. Piddington cannot legally secede, but that was hardly the point. Residents wanted somebody in Whitehall to notice them.
The Home Office has applied for Bicester through the Urgent Crown Development process, a route for projects deemed urgent and nationally important. The decision then goes to central government rather than through the normal local planning process.
Barnham has about 600 residents, thatched cottages, a medieval church and a primary school. Reports put roughly 1,250 men on the former RAF site for at least ten years. Suffolk County Council says nobody warned or consulted it before the plans became public.
Then there is Linton-on-Ouse. Its shop has been closed for years, public transport consists of a handful of buses and its population is reported to be about 700. The camp could hold around 1,200 men.
Linton was tried once already. The Conservatives wanted to put as many as 1,500 asylum seekers there in 2022, but pulled out after local opposition and the threat of court action. Labour is now trying the same site without having answered much of what was said against it last time.
The factsheets even contain a question asking how many people each camp will hold. There is no number beneath it. Instead, the Home Office says it “does not give a live commentary” on occupancy and that the sites would start with smaller numbers.
None of the three sites is open. There is no live occupancy to comment on. Ministers have already told Parliament that the sites would provide around 3,750 places between them.
The two camps already operating hardly make the case for expansion.
Crowborough opened in January and is already nearing its 540-place limit. The town centre is roughly a mile away. Protests continue most Sundays and three people were arrested after disorder during the first week, adding to the demand on police.
There is no evidence so far of the crime wave some opponents predicted. The recorded figures do not show a crime wave. There is plenty else to criticise.
Wethersfield is more troubling. The isolated Essex airfield held 766 men in late June and is being expanded to hold 1,245. Essex County Council says residents are transported to Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford, spreading the demand for police and health services well beyond the immediate village.
The council says there have been numerous cases of crime, harassment and antisocial behaviour. It has not said how many, which makes those allegations impossible to test. The Home Office gives no up-to-date occupancy figure either. Residents have neither the incident totals nor the current number of men at the camp.
During 2023 and 2024, one medical service dealt with 301 Wethersfield residents. It found severe mental distress in 62 per cent of them; 30 per cent had suicidal thoughts. All 301 had sought medical help, which means they were not a representative sample of the whole camp.
On cost, the Home Office quotes £132 a night for each person at Wethersfield. A hotel, it says, costs £144.98. But MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee found £105 million in acquisition, lease and set-up costs missing from that comparison.
The committee also found that Wethersfield had no agreed performance regime. It said the Home Office still had no clear, achievable long-term plan for asylum accommodation. Ministers want three more camps anyway.
If ministers need these camps, they should say how many men will live at each one, what each will cost and what police and health services have been told to expect. They should also publish what they have learned from Crowborough and Wethersfield. Local communities know the camps could remain for a decade, but are not even being told officially how many people would live in them.
Sources: Home Office military-site factsheets and parliamentary announcement; Commons Home Affairs Committee; Essex and Braintree councils.