The government has released documents relating to its “urgent” plans to build asylum seekers’ accommodation on a former military base.
The Home Office is proposing to convert existing buildings and provide accommodation for up to 1,256 men at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) site near Bicester, Oxfordshire.
It has made an Urgent Crown Development, external application, a special procedure to fast track the process due to its “national importance”.
Calum Miller, MP for Bicester and Woodstock, called on Prime Minister Andy Burnham on his Commons debut on Tuesday to publish the plans, which he claimed had been “veiled in secrecy”.
After their release the Liberal Democrat MP said: “These documents lay bare why MOD Bicester is the wrong site for this proposal.
“The site has never previously had accommodation. It has no safe transport, no water supply, no electricity or gas.”
He added: “The government said their application was urgent yet made us wait seven weeks to see it… the taxpayer, local residents and those seeking asylum deserve better than a proposal of this scale being pushed through without full information and full local consultation.
“Ministers must stop these plans.”
Labour has pledged to stop using hotels, a costly form of accommodation that has become a focal point for anti-migrant protests.
As of March this year, 20,885 (21%) asylum seekers were in hotels and 72,768 (75%) were in other accommodation as they awaited decisions.
In 2005, the then Labour government abandoned plans for an asylum seekers accommodation centre on the same site, external.