Campsfield campaigners to fundraise for specialist lawyers to stop expansion
The group says expanding the Kidlington site would cause more harm to vulnerable people
Campaigners opposing the expansion of Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre say they are looking to fundraise for specialist lawyers to help them challenge the plans at a public inquiry.
The Coalition to Close Campsfield says it needs barristers to represent its case when the postponed inquiry into the Home Office proposals eventually gets underway.
The Home Office wants to expand the immigration removal centre near Kidlington from space for 160 people to around 400.
The inquiry had been due to begin at Cherwell District Council's offices in Banbury on Tuesday, but has been postponed following concerns raised by the coalition over material connected with the Home Office's application which had been withheld or redacted.
A new date has not yet been announced.
Why are campaigners against the expansion?
The coalition has opposed both the reopening of Campsfield and plans to increase its capacity.
Don Redding from the Coalition to Close Campsfield said: "It causes great distress to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities."
He added that many of the people detained there would have been traumatised by events in their home countries or by the process of leaving their country.
"People who are really not in a fit state to be suddenly taken away from their support networks locked up and isolated," he said.
Mr Redding also fears the plans could bring some of the problems he says exist at other detention centres.
"If they expand it, it will become like some of the larger immigration removal centres around the country, such as Harmondsworth and Brook House, where the building design tends to be much worse for the health of the detainees," he said.
He believes there is evidence for those concerns from independent inspections and independent visitor reports.
The coalition will take part in the inquiry as the only outside party acting as a core participant.
What does the Home Office say?
A Home Office spokesperson said: "We are committed to increasing the removal of those with no right to remain in the UK. Expanding our detention capacity plays an important role in achieving this.
"We remain confident in the application for the expansion of Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre and will continue to engage constructively with the Planning Inspectorate as the process moves forward."
The Home Office says the projects at Campsfield and Haslar Immigration Removal Centres will contribute to a 40% increase in the UK's detention capacity.
It says the decision to hold an inquiry is about how the planning application will be examined and is not a judgment on the merits of the expansion plans.