Plans to double Oxfordshire immigration removal centre continue
Proposals to expand Campsfield House to hold up to 400 men are currently being assessed
Plans to more than double the capacity of a controversial Oxfordshire immigration removal centre are set to be decided at a public inquiry following mass local objection.
Proposals to expand Campsfield House, a Home Office detention facility near Kiddlington, to hold up to 400 men are currently being assessed by the Government Planning Inspectorate.
Campsfield reopened in 2025 with 160 beds following a period of closure which came after a review of detainees’ welfare and years of protest, including hunger strikes.
In around 250 objections to the expansion from neighbouring residents, workers, councils, MPs, human rights advocates and campaign groups, there were repeated calls for the plan to come to an inquiry to ensure “proper scrutiny”.
The plans are going through the Crown Development route, which effectively bypasses the local planning authority due to their “national importance”.
In a letter sent to those who made written representations on the plans, the Crown Development case team at the Government’s planning inspectorate confirmed a public inquiry will be held and the opportunity to request to give evidence.
The letter said: “The application has generated considerable local interest; some of the issues raised are complex and the evidence would benefit from formal cross-examination.”
Concerns about “inhumane” detention on the site, opposition to its being open – let alone expanded, noise and green belt development had been included in objections.
The letter added: “The date, time and venue fixed for the holding of the inquiry will be published on the application website in due course. ”
An inquiry is a court-like legal process used to evaluate major controversial development plans
It is the most formal of procedures which could be used to authorise or refuse plans.
Government guidance states it will be “open to the public and provides for the investigation into, and formal testing of, evidence, usually through cross-examination of expert witnesses and other witnesses” and that “parties may be formally represented by advocates”.
In a joint statement, Coalition to Close Campsfield and Right to Remain had listed reasons why the groups believed an inquiry was needed.
It said: “Planning Inspectorate guidance provides that an inquiry is appropriate where there is a clearly explained need for evidence to be tested through formal questioning, where the issues are complex, or where an appeal has generated substantial local interest warranting an inquiry rather than a hearing.”
The statement says “those conditions are met”, saying “evidence is complex, disputed, and likely to involve technical material on Green Belt policy, transport, infrastructure, landscape, ecology, operational need, capacity, and site layout”.
In 2003, an inquiry was held into an asylum seeker accommodation centre that was planned for MOD Bicester and was refused.
This decision was overruled by the government, but the plans did not go ahead.