The government has taken “no final decision” on its plan to house 1,500 asylum seekers at a former RAF base in a small North Yorkshire village, it has emerged.
Announced by the Home Office last month, the idea prompted outrage from residents in Linton-on-Ouse, which is currently home to around 600 people.
The local MP Kevin Hollinrake also said he disapproved of the proposal, as did Hambleton district council, which threatened to take legal action against the government.
Although the first 60 asylum seekers were supposed to arrive at RAF Linton by Tuesday, ministers have seemingly decided to delay its conversion into a processing centre that has already dubbed Guantanamo-on-Ouse.
In a leaked letter sent to the head of the district council, a senior civil servant wrote that the matter was still under consideration.
“I can confirm that no final decision has been taken by ministers to accommodate asylum seekers at RAF Linton,” they wrote.
“I can confirm that where obligations relating to consultation with the council, community and other stakeholders exist they will be fulfilled.”
When asked by The Independent, the Home Office did not deny that the plan had been put on hold.
“We maintain the site is urgently needed to provide essential asylum accommodation and will assist as we end the use of asylum seekers using hotels which are costing the taxpayer almost £5million a day,” it said in a statement.
It added that it was “listening to community feedback” and maintained that the site would be “as self-sufficient as possible”.
Mr Hollinrake, the MP whose constituency contains Linton-on-Ouse, previously told parliament that its villagers were “sacrificial lambs to a national policy”.
The politician now hopes the idea will be shelved altogether. Speaking of the government’s delay in opening the centre, he said: “What it infers is that they’re still thinking whether this is the right place to go to, so I’m hopeful on that basis that they might be thinking again.”
This comes a month after he told The Independent it was the wrong location for the asylum centre. “It’s not realistic. As the Home Office guidance stipulates, it should be a major conurbation, one that has access to towns and cities, where one can access public services.”
At the same time, charities raised concerns about the suitability of using a disused RAF base as a processing centre, noting the bad conditions asylum seekers endured at Napier Barracks in Kent.
“It is astonishing that, despite severe concerns raised around the neglect and horrendous conditions asylum seekers were forced to endure in Napier Barracks, the government intends to replicate these conditions in another isolated army barracks,” Sophie McCann, advocacy advisor for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) UK, said.
