The Home Office is attempting to use three more military sites to house thousands of asylum seekers, as the government seeks to move people out of hotels.
Three Ministry of Defence (MoD) sites in Bicester in Oxfordshire, Barnham in Suffolk, and Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire, could house about 3,750 asylum seekers if planning permission is granted.
The government is also looking to extend the use of existing military sites in Crowborough, East Sussex until 2030 and Wethersfield, Essex beyond 2027.
Labour has pledged to stop using asylum hotels, a costly form of accommodation that has become a focal point for anti-migrant protests.
As of March this year, 20,885 (21%) asylum seekers were in hotels and 72,768 (75%) were in other accommodation as they awaited decisions.
The number of asylum seekers in hotels has dropped from a peak of 56,000 in September 2023.
On Thursday, the Home Office said a further 20 asylum hotels had been shut, reducing the number in use to 170.
Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said: “We are 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.”
But Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Labour “should be putting illegal immigrants on a plane home rather than messing around with military camps and hotels”.
He said Labour “will not do what is needed to tear down the barriers to deportation, and without deportation, there is no deterrent”.
Lib Dem MP Callum Miller told Radio 4’s Today programme he opposed the use of an MoD site in his Bicester and Woodstock constituency, accusing the government of having “no credible plan about how it will manage the site and how it will maintain social cohesion”.
“The question we are looking for the answer to is why the government thinks it is possible to put 1,250 asylum seekers in to a community when the nearest village numbers 370… I’ve literally no idea how the government thinks that can be absorbed into the community.”
The government stated its intention to increase the number of MoD sites it was using to accommodate asylum seekers last year.
Two former military sites – RAF Wethersfield in Essex, and Crowborough Training Camp in East Sussex – are already being used to house asylum seekers.
But the use of military sites for this purpose has been hampered by practical difficulties and highly contested by local residents as well as human rights groups.
This week, an MP said one scheme to house up to 300 male asylum seekers at Cameron Barracks in Inverness had been dropped, following protests.
The Red Cross said military barracks “are often in isolated locations and, by their very nature, can retraumatise people who have fled conflict and persecution”.
“It’s clear that housing people seeking asylum in hotels isn’t working well for anyone, but any alternative accommodation must enable people to live in safety and dignity,” said Sam Turner, British Red Cross director of migration and displacement, said.
