The Government is facing mounting anger over plans to house up to 1,200 asylum seekers at a former military site in an Oxfordshire village with a population of just 400.
Home Office minister Anna Turley defended the proposal, insisting migrants would be accommodated at the former military base near Piddington, outside Bicester, rather than in hotels and would have access to services on site.
“They’re not going to be in the village,” Ms Turley told LBC. “They will be allowed out, everything they need will be on that site.”
The Government is examining former military and industrial sites, as well as student accommodation, as alternatives to costly asylum hotels.
The move comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham insists that responsibility for accommodating asylum seekers must be spread more evenly across the country, rather than concentrated in poorer areas.
“We cannot have a situation where it’s only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers,” Mr Burnham said.
“I do believe all parts of the country need to work, to play their part.”
For Piddington residents, however, the proposed scale of the accommodation has become the central issue. A population of 1,200 asylum seekers would be roughly three times the size of the existing village population.
Residents have voted to hold a symbolic referendum on leaving the UK as part of their protest against the plans, highlighting the depth of local opposition.
Ms Turley said the Government would consult residents and follow the planning process, arguing that the scheme represented a “fairness” measure designed to distribute asylum accommodation more evenly.
She also stressed that the site was outside the village and would operate as a self-contained facility.
The intervention comes against a backdrop of growing tensions over asylum accommodation, with ministers under pressure to reduce the enormous cost of housing migrants in hotels while finding locations capable of accommodating large numbers.
The Government argues that former military sites offer a cheaper alternative and could reduce the burden on taxpayers.
But the political risk is substantial.
Critics argue that concentrating more than 1,000 people at a site serving a community of just 400 risks overwhelming local infrastructure and imposing a disproportionate burden on residents.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp accused Mr Burnham of imposing further pressure on working families and claimed the Government was deliberately placing migrants in communities against their wishes.
The dispute exposes the difficult arithmetic confronting ministers: closing expensive hotels requires large-scale alternative accommodation, but finding sites large enough to make a meaningful difference inevitably brings the Government into conflict with local communities.
For Piddington, the numbers have turned an abstract national asylum policy into an immediate local confrontation.
A village of 400 is being asked to absorb a population three times its own size.
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