EXCLUSIVE: The cash was spent on legionella testing and removing the MOD’s secure IT network
The Labour government has earmarked Cameron Barracks to house up to 300 asylum seekers(Image: Paul Campbell/Getty)
The Ministry of Defence has spent £56,000 on an Inverness barracks earmarked for housing hundreds of asylum seekers. Defence chiefs shelled out the sum to test the water and overhaul IT systems at the Cameron Barracks.
Local MSP Fergus Ewing said the controversial asylum seeker plan was beginning to look like a “West End farce”. The Home Office announced last year that they may use the Highlands site as asylum accommodation.
UK Ministers are committed to closing asylum hotels and the barracks was identified as one alternative. Around 300 asylum seekers were expected to be housed in the Highlands, but a backlash from local people led to the plan being delayed.
No asylum seekers have arrived yet and a freedom of information release from the MoD reveals their spending ahead of the possible transfer of the site to the Home Office. The sums involve £44,000 on legionella testing and £12,000 to remove the MOD’s secure IT network at the barracks.
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Fergus Ewing.(Image: Reach PLC.)
Temporary fencing has been erected at the back of the site, but this cost nothing. Local MSP Fergus Ewing said: “These large amounts of taxpayers money spent on the barracks may well prove to be wasted. The Home Office first said the asylum seekers would definitely start to move in last November. This didn’t happen. No-one knows what’s now going on. They won’t say but Alex Norris, their Minister of State, told me in a letter recently that “no final decision has been taken” about whether to use the barracks. I suspect they may well require to call off the plan. They should.
“They have totally failed to reply to the local council. It’s all starting to look like another West End farce.”
Tory MSP Edward Mountain said: “Taxpayers will wonder why they are forking out so much money when this site still hasn’t been fully transferred to the Home Office.
“Cameron Barracks is simply not a suitable site to house asylum seekers, yet the concerns of local people are continuing to be ignored.
“Money should not be getting taken away from defence budgets at such a critical time in order to house those who have come here illegally.”
The MOD’s FOI response stated: “The MOD has not spent any money on preparing Cameron Barracks for Asylum Seekers. The MOD has spent £56,000 on preparation of the site for the potential transfer to the Home Office and their potential use of the site….”
The MOD added: “You may find it helpful to know that the works carried out are works that we would have competed prior to transferring the site to any 3rd party and not specifically the HO [Home Office].”