Wethersfield: Housing of asylum seekers to go ahead at ex-RAF site

MDP Wethersfield is used as a training base for the Ministry of Defence Police

The government has confirmed it plans to house asylum seekers at a former RAF base in Essex, despite a legal threat.

Braintree District Council has applied to the High Court to block plans to house people at Wethersfield in Essex and said it was "extremely disappointed".

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said the site and two others in England would only provide basic accommodation.

The Home Office is trying to end its reliance on hotel accommodation.

In his announcement to the House of Commons, Mr Jenrick confirmed MDP Wethersfield and RAF Scampton, in Lincolnshire, would house migrants, despite a proposed judicial challenge.

A separate site on private land in Bexhill, East Sussex, would also be used.

Mr Jenrick said: "Today the government is announcing the first tranche of sites we will set up to provide basic accommodation at scale.

"These will be scaled up over the coming months and will collectively provide accommodation to several thousand asylum seekers through repurposed barrack blocks and portacabins."

He added he was "continuing to explore the possibility" of using ferries and barges to reduce the "eye-watering" reliance on hotels.

In a statement, Braintree District Council said it was "extremely disappointing that concerns raised by us and the local community have not been taken on board".

"Our view remains that Wethersfield Airfield is an unsuitable site, given the lack of capacity in local services, its isolated location, the size of the site, and the fact that the scale of the development proposed could have a significant adverse impact upon the local community," it said.

The council added that it expected a hearing for its interim injunction application to be heard in the next seven days, before the site is occupied.

About 250 people attended a demonstration on Sunday at Wethersfield protesting against the government's proposal, before it was confirmed.

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Local residents, pictured on Sunday, said the Wethersfield site was unsuitable

There is no longer an RAF presence at the Essex site but it is used as a Ministry of Defence Police base for various activities, including training exercises.

The airfield is not served by a bus route and is roughly 10 miles from the nearest railway station in Braintree.

The plans are due to go ahead in the Braintree constituency of Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, despite him arguing Wethersfield "wasn't appropriate for asylum accommodation".

Writing on social media, Mr Cleverly said: "Although this decision isn't the result my constituents and I wanted, I have received assurances that community safety will remain paramount."

Mr Jenrick told the Commons: "Accommodation for migrants should meet their essential living needs and nothing more.

"Because we cannot risk becoming a magnet for the millions of people who are displaced and seeking better economic prospects."

The government said last year that housing asylum seekers in hotels was costing it almost £7m daily.

Labour shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the announcement was "an admission of failure" on asylum policy.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "The government is still failing to make timely decisions with just 11,000 cases being processed in the last three months.

"We rightly opened our hearts and our homes to people from Ukraine - and yet the government wants to treat those from Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iran as criminals, locking them up in inadequate accommodation and threatening them with deportation.

"At the same time some local communities are rightly not happy about the impact on their areas of government failure."