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.
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.
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.
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.”
She said that “illegal migration has been placing immense pressure on 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 said that the council had asked for legal advice to see if they could bring a successful legal action against the government’s decision.
Crowborough Town Council said the site was not suitable to house asylum seekers, adding in a statement: “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.”
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.
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”.
Imran Hussain, director of external affairs of charity Refugee Council, said that the use of the barracks “won’t make a dent in the overall number of people in hotels”. He added: “Even if 500 people are eventually moved there, that’s just over one per cent of the estimated population in asylum hotels.
“Military camps have already been tried as a solution to asylum accommodation and failed. They also separate people who have fled persecution and violence in countries like Afghanistan from communities and essential services, leaving them unable to integrate”.
Ann Salter, head of clinical services North West at charity Freedom from Torture, said that putting people in places like Crowborough undermines their ability to recover from torture. She said: “Places like Crowborough...subject survivors of torture to overcrowding, a lack of privacy and conditions that only intensify anxiety, panic and hopelessness.
“Survivors tell us that living in a former military site can feel unbearable because it so closely resembles the places where they were detained and abused. This approach is not just inhumane, it is dangerous”.
Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais, said that the charity had supported people accommodated at camps such as Wethersfield, Napier and Penally. He said: “Our experience of these sites has show that camps like these are isolating, retraumatising and bad for people’s mental health.
“The Labour government should be closing the existing one at Wethersfield, like they promised at the last election, not opening new ones like Crowborough”.
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.
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