More military barracks to house asylum seekers as Home Office shuts hotels
Government aims to reduce reliance on hotels for asylum seeker housing
The Home Office is planning to use more former military barracks to house thousands of asylum seekers in its quest to shut more hotels.
The news comes ahead of fresh immigration reforms to be introduced to Parliament next week.
Planning permission is being sought at Ministry of Defence sites in Bicester in Oxfordshire, Barnham in Suffolk, and Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire, to accommodate 3,750 asylum seekers, the department said.
It appears the Home Office is trying to revive efforts to use the disused RAF base in a small village near York after it was forced to abandon the plan in 2022 to house up to 1,500 asylum seekers there in the face of opposition from local people and a council legal challenge.
The Government is now also looking to expand the use of existing sites in Crowborough in East Sussex until 2030 and Wethersfield in Essex beyond 2027.
Labour pledged to stop using asylum hotels by the next election.
The number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels has fallen to its lowest level since data was first reported in 2022, according to Home Office figures published last month.
There were 20,885 people staying in such accommodation while they were awaiting a decision on their asylum claims at the end of March, down 35% year-on-year from 32,326.
The total had climbed as high as 56,018 at the end of September 2023.
The issue of people being housed in hotels came to the fore last year with protests outside some sites.
On Thursday, the Home Office said 20 more hotels have now been closed.
Dayz Away Lodge, Dudley, Black Country
Holiday Inn Ashford Central, Ashford, Kent
Best Western Atlantic, Chelmsford, Essex
The Cisswood, Horsham, Sussex
The Collection Hotel, Birmingham, West Midlands
Adagio, Leicester, East Midlands
Norwich Hotel, Norwich, Norfolk
Allerton Court, Northallerton, North Yorkshire
Mercure George, Reading, Berkshire
TLK Apartments, Bromley, Greater London
Best Western Stoke – Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire
The Granby (1 The Hill), Gravesham, Kent
Hampton by Hilton, Bristol
Delta Hotel Cheshunt, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire
Episode Leamington, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
Oxford Witney Hotel, Oxford, Oxfordshire
Shambrook, Bedford, Bedfordshire
Bell hotel, Epping, Essex
OYO Evesham hotel, Evesham, Worcestershire
Best Western, Wembley, London
Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said: ”We promised to close every asylum hotel and hand them back to communities, and that is exactly what we are doing.
“Twenty more hotels have closed, and hotel numbers have more than halved since their peak. Instead, we’re moving asylum seekers into ex-military sites that are a far cry from the hotels the last Government left us with.
“This is a system being brought back under control – and we will not stop until the job is done.”
The Refugee Council’s Imran Hussain said: “Moving refugees from unsuitable hotels to unsuitable former military sites is storing up problems for the next prime minister by repeating policies that failed in the recent past. It would be wise to rethink this approach.”