The government has no current plans to house migrants at a former RAF base on the edge of the Harrogate district, Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has said.
The government scrapped plans last year to house 1,500 asylum seekers at Linton-on-Ouse after a fierce backlash from local people and politicians.
The former airfield is nine miles from Boroughbridge, 13 miles from Knaresborough, and even closer to Harrogate district villages such as Great Ouseburn, Little Ouseburn and Nun Monkton.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick told the Commons yesterday the government was now considering housing migrants at at Catterick Garrison in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s constituency.
Ex-military bases in Essex, Lincolnshire and East Sussex are also being assessed for suitability as part of plans to cut down on hotel use.
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel, who was behind the Linton proposal, said the proposed Essex site “is no different in rurality and village size from a former site, Linton-on-Ouse”, adding:
“Why is it deemed appropriate for asylum seeker accommodation for single men to be placed in a rural village in Essex, where there is no infrastructure and no amenities, when it was not appropriate for somewhere like Linton-on-Ouse?”
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In response, Mr Jenrick said:
“We do not have a current plan to proceed with the Linton-on-Ouse proposition, but the sites I have announced today are just the first set that we would like to take forward, because we want to remove people from hotels as quickly as possible and move to this more rudimentary form of accommodation, which will reduce pull factors to the UK and defend the interests of the taxpayer.
Labour shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper described the announcement as “an admission of failure” on asylum policy.
County council criticises Home Office again over ‘dumping asylum seekers’North Yorkshire County Council has criticised the Home Office for its treatment of those seeking asylum after it scrapped plans to house 1,500 asylum seekers at a former RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse
Conservative Cllr David Chance, executive member for stronger communities, said despite having repeatedly been made aware of the complete unsuitability of a hotel near Selby as bridging accommodation for Afghan refugees, the Home Office had announced it now intended to use it for asylum seekers instead.
The move has emerged just weeks after the Home Office revealed it no longer intended to send asylum seekers to Linton on Ouse, which is four miles from Great Ouseburn and Little Ousburn in the Harrogate district, not far from Knaresborough and Boroughbridge.
It also comes just three weeks after the final Afghan refugees left the hotel near Selby. After leaving the accommodation, Marwa Koofi, 21, who fled Kabul when the city fell to the Taliban last year, said she had since “wasted a year because my hotel was in a location where I couldn’t do anything”.
A meeting of the executive of the county council, which in partnership with a range of agencies continues to provide support to the Afghan refugee families in another bridging hotel in Scarborough, heard families at the Selby hotel had been moved to other hotels.
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Cllr Chance said he was unaware of the proposed number of asylum seekers at the hotel.
He said the hotel had written to the government asking to be considered as bridging accommodation for refugees, “much against our better judgement”.
Coun Chance said:
“We said that to the Home Office at the time. We do not believe this hotel is suitable for this purpose and I can’t support it.
“You are putting individuals in the middle of a motorway complex with nothing to do and it’s totally wrong, but out of our hands.”
After the meeting, Selby councillor and leader of the council’s Labour group Councillor Steve Shaw Wright said as the hotel was on the side of the former A1 those staying there would face having to walk miles to get anywhere.
He said while Selby Town Council had funded buses to get the Afghan refugees into the town so they could mix with people of their own faith, local councillors had been “really pleased” when they heard the government would close it for refugees.
Cllr Shaw Wright said:
“We hoped they would go to somewhere more suitable, but it was announced it would be a hotel for individual asylum seekers. That’s even worse because how are they going to cope in the middle of nowhere and, if they’re waiting asylum seekers, some of them might go walkabout.
“It’s an example of the government not having a clue what they are doing with these people and it’s not fair on the asylum seekers and refugees and it’s also not fair on the local community.
“It seems like a knee-jerk decision to dump refugees in the middle of nowhere.”
A Home Office spokesman said the response to the crisis in Afghanistan last August was one of the most challenging, intense and complex overseas operations undertaken by the UK, and the largest air evacuation operation in recent memory.
He added:
“While hotels do not provide a long-term solution, they do offer safe, secure and clean accommodation. We will continue to bring down the number of people in bridging hotels, moving people into more sustainable accommodation as quickly as possible.”