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The first asylum seekers have been moved into a former army training camp in East Sussex as part of Labour’s plans to close down controversial migrant hotels.
A total of 27 migrants were moved into Crowborough military barracks under the cover of darkness early on Thursday morning. They are the first asylum seekers to arrive at the site, with more people expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
The Home Office hope to scale up the number of asylum seekers at the barracks to 540. Asylum seekers will be housed there for three months while their claims are processed, and local councillors have said they have had assurances that the site will only be used for a year.
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The first asylum seekers have been moved into Crowborough army camp, with more to arrive in coming weeks (Home Office)
Moving asylum seekers to large sites like Crowborough is part of the Home Office’s plan to close down costly migrant hotels. The Crowborough camp was most recently used to house Afghan families on the resettlement programme.
Larger sites, such as the Bibby Stockholm barge, have been used to house migrants in the past and RAF Wethersfield is still in use despite a legal action finding failings at the site.
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Asylum seekers will be housed at the site for three months while their claims are processed (Home Office)
The National Audit Office (NAO) has previously assessed use of these large sites to be more expensive than paying for hotels.
Migrant hotels became hotspots for protest last Summer after a migrant living at a hotel in Essex sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
Epping Forest District Council sought an injunction to bar asylum seekers from being housed at The Bell hotel but were ultimately unsuccessful in the courts, with the Home Office arguing that the loss of bed spaces would be “significant”.
According to the latest government data, there are now fewer than 200 hotels in use around the country.
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The home secretary has said that asylum seekers should be moved into large sites so that they can close asylum hotels (Home Office)
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood said opening Crowborough army camp for asylum seekers was “just the start”. She added: “I will bring forward site after site until every asylum hotel is closed and returned to local communities.
“I will not rest until order and control to our borders is restored.”
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Crowborough army camp is now being used to house asylum seekers (Home Office)
She said that “illegal migration has been placing immense pressure on communities”, adding: “That is why we are removing the incentives that draw illegal migrants to Britain, closing asylum hotels that are blighting communities”.
James Partridge, lead councillor for governance at Wealden District Council, reacted to the news saying the Home Office “hasn’t listened to any of us”. He added: “We’ve immediately contacted our legal team to ask them to review the decision to see if there is any way we can bring a legal challenge to it. We know that this is a long shot, but we have been probing the Home Office throughout the whole process to see if we can find a way to bring a successful legal action.”
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Local councils have said that Crowborough barracks are not suitable to house hundreds of asylum seekers (Home Office)
Crowborough Town Council said that it “does not believe the army camp is a suitable location for this purpose”.
In a statement, the council added: “The proposed accommodation of up to 540 adult men, when considered against the rural population size of Crowborough, is disproportionate and raises serious concerns about suitability, capacity and impact.
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Asylum seekers will have to sign in and out to leave and return to the site (PA)
“The Town Council is especially concerned that it has not been consulted on any community impact assessments, despite being the authority closest to residents and local services.”
Local residents group, Crowborough Says No, have called for people to join a peaceful protest against the use of the barracks this Sunday.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that the move was “another day of shame for the Labour government”. He said thousands of army and RAF cadets would no longer be able to use the site for training.
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The Home Office has released photos of inside Crowborough army camp, including a hall with desks available for newly arrived asylum seekers (Home Office)
He claimed that the “women and children of Crowborough” would be exposed to risks from asylum seekers living at the site and urged the government to “deport all illegal migrants within a week of arrival”.
The Home Office have also said they will use Cameron army barracks in Inverness to house asylum seekers. The site has previously been used for Afghan families.
Specialist security will be at Crowborough 24/7 with CCTV and “strict sign-in procedures” for residents, the Home Office said.