People in north Essex are urging ministers to abandon what they understand to be plans to accommodate 1,500 male asylum seekers at a former RAF base on their doorsteps.
The group told the Guardian it had received information from multiple sources that MDP Wethersfield had been earmarked by the Home Office for use as an asylum accommodation centre.
The Home Office refused to confirm or deny these reports. It is costing the government almost £6m a day to accommodate about 45,000 asylum seekers in hotels. A report from the international development select committee on Thursday found that as much as a third of the overseas aid budget is being spent on accommodating asylum seekers in the UK.
The Home Office has also published details of a £70m contract to house asylum seekers in accommodation centres in an attempt to end hotel use.
Last August the Home Office abandoned plans to establish an asylum seeker accommodation centre at an RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse in a rural part of North Yorkshire after mass opposition to the plans. Campaigners who support asylum seekers, and also those who do not, argued that the isolated rural site close to a small village was an unsuitable location for such a centre.
People living close to Wethersfield airbase say very similar issues apply. They believe the 325-hectare (800-acre) site is unsuitable as it is extremely rural, predominantly farmland with small villages and hamlets widely dispersed across a large area. It is a two-mile walk to reach the nearest village, with an infrequent bus service from the village to the nearest town. The site was originally a second world war RAF base and then a US air force base during the cold war.
The Fields Association, a residents association in the area, has written to Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, urging him to intervene with the Home Office to prevent any accommodation centre plans from going ahead. Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, and James Cleverly, the foreign secretary and local MP for Braintree, along with Essex county council, have also been sent copies.
The letter states: “The Fields Association have been made aware that certain Ministry of Defence land at Wethersfield airbase is currently being vacated to enable it to be transferred to the Home Office with the intention to house 1,500 single male asylum seekers and refugees on the former base.”
The letter adds: “The site at Wethersfield is almost identical to that at former RAF base at Linton-on-Ouse. As you will be aware those plans were subsequently withdrawn because of that site’s unsuitability for such a purpose. The land at Wethersfield airbase is similarly unsuitable. Warehousing 1,500 single men in a rural ex-RAF/USAF camp, without easy access to any form of support will cause untold serious harm to people escaping war and persecution.”
People have also expressed concern that having such a concentrated accommodation site could make it a target for the far right.
A government spokesperson said: “We have always been upfront about the unprecedented pressure being put on our asylum system, brought about by a significant increase in dangerous and illegal journeys into the country. We continue to work across government and with local authorities to look at a range of accommodation options and sites but the best way to relieve these pressures is to stop the boats in the first place. That is why we are focused on doing everything we can to break the business model of people smugglers who are exploiting vulnerable people for profit.”
A Home Office source said: “We are working to end the use of hotels and bring forward a range of alternative sites, including former student halls and surplus military sites, for longer-term accommodation while ensuring that asylum seekers, who would otherwise be destitute, are supported in our accommodation.”
