Campsfield House: ‘Home Office needs to engage with local residents’, says local MP
The Immigration Removal Centre is planned to reopen December
Last updated 18th Sep 2025
An Oxfordshire MP is urging the Government to engage better with local residents about the reopening of an Immigration Removal Centre near Kidlington.
The Home Office are planning to renovate Campsfield House under two phases and reopen December this year.
Around 160 bed spaces will be created in the refurbished accommodation’ with further expansion of up to 400 beds in future, according to the Home Office.
Calum Miller, MP for Bicester and Woodstock says, “local residents say to me that they have not been adequately informed about the impacts on them of this first phase of building”.
He added: “They've been kept in the dark by the Home Office, who've been redeveloping the site with the intention of opening it as early as this December, and yet they've been told very little about its operation.
“The history of Campsfield site is a dark one, and a lot of people have local concerns about that.
“So, it's really important that the Home Office answer their questions and engage much more than they have in the past.”
Mr Miller also says, “I have asked questions of Home Office officials and Ministers - none of them have been able to give me a very clear answer.”
“Without that, there are legitimate questions as to whether it's necessary to reopen this site”, he adds.
The Liberal Democrat MP is also urging the Government to ensure ‘anyone who'll be held at Campsfield House is treated humanely’.
Mr Miller said: “The way that the centre at Camsfield was run in the past, there were escapes, so people will want to have the reassurance that if the facility does open, it will be properly and effectively run by the Home Office.”
Greatest Hits Radio Oxfordshire contacted the Home Office for a reply on Calum Miller MP’s comments.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “We are committed to ramping up returns activity and removing those with no right to be here. We have already seen more than 35,000 people with no right to be here are swiftly removed this year.
“Opening Campsfield immigration removal centre will boost our capacity to maintain this higher pace of removals and immigration enforcement.”