The Home Office has spent more than £3.4mn drawing up plans for a proposed asylum seeker camp accommodating up to 931 people at a former RAF base, prompting accusations of wasteful spending before ministers have even decided whether the site will go ahead.
Construction giant Kier has been awarded a £3,400,411.27 contract to prepare detailed proposals for RAF Barnham, a former nuclear weapons storage facility on the Norfolk-Suffolk border near Thetford.
The contract, signed in October but published this week, covers what the department describes as “Refurbishment and Modular Solutions” at the site. The Home Office insists no final decision has been made on whether to establish the accommodation centre.
The spending has provoked anger among local residents and political opponents, particularly because the government has yet to publish a planning application or establish whether the scheme can legally proceed.
Ministers intend to use the Urgent Crown Development process, a fast-track planning mechanism that bypasses the local council. The proposed facility is one of three former military sites being considered as the government attempts to move asylum seekers out of hotels and into alternative accommodation.
Scott Hussey, a Reform UK cabinet member at Norfolk County Council, criticised the £3.4mn design contract and demanded that ministers disclose the likely total cost of the project.
“The Home Office has already handed aptly-named Kier Construction £3.4 million just for design work and this is before a single brick has been laid or portacabin installed,” he said.
“The real refurbishment bill is still to come and could come in at tens of millions of pounds.”
He also questioned the government’s priorities, arguing that successive administrations had failed to provide adequate accommodation for members of the armed forces when the site was still in military use.
“Successive governments have never found enough money to give our own armed forces decent accommodation – including when this site was used by the RAF – yet for illegal immigrant accommodation the money flows freely,” he said.
“We deserve to know the full cost before any decision is made.”
The plans have also faced opposition from residents, with protests staged outside the former military base.
Helen Beck, chairwoman of the Barnham Residents Association, said the community was “hugely disappointed” that public money was being spent on a scheme whose viability remained uncertain.
“The fact that the government is happy to spend £3.4m drawing up a scheme – that at the moment they don’t even know whether it can legally go ahead – is hugely disappointing,” she said.
The Home Office defended its wider strategy, saying it was seeking a fairer distribution of asylum accommodation while reducing the expense of housing migrants in hotels.
A spokesman said: “The government is working on a fairer distribution of asylum accommodation across the country, with over £1 billion saved in costs since the election.
“This includes closing all asylum hotels and moving to alternative accommodation, including former military sites.”
The department said the proposed facilities would be self-contained, with round-the-clock security and CCTV, to minimise their impact on surrounding communities.
However, with no final decision on RAF Barnham, the £3.4mn design bill has become an early flashpoint in the battle over the government’s plans to overhaul asylum accommodation.
Leave a Comment