Andy Burnham is facing growing criticism over the Government’s asylum accommodation strategy, after residents of a North Yorkshire village claimed taxpayers could face a bill of about £500 a night to house migrants at a former military base.
Linton-on-Ouse, a village of roughly 700 people, has been earmarked for an asylum accommodation centre capable of housing up to 1,200 people as the Government seeks to eliminate the use of asylum hotels by 2029.
Olga Matthias, a spokeswoman for the Linton-on-Ouse Action Group, told GB News that the proposed arrangement could cost hundreds of millions of pounds over its projected three-year operation.
The controversy has intensified following Burnham’s pledge of £442mn to help end rough sleeping before Christmas. The Prime Minister has presented the programme as an urgent response to the number of people sleeping on Britain’s streets, but campaigners have questioned the contrast between spending on asylum accommodation and support for homeless Britons.
Matthias said the Government had produced a series of ambitious commitments without explaining how they would be delivered.
She also questioned whether the £442mn headline figure represented substantial new spending, noting that only £102mn was reportedly additional funding, with the remainder already allocated to homelessness programmes.
The dispute illustrates the political difficulty facing Burnham as his government attempts simultaneously to reduce the use of expensive asylum hotels, redistribute migrants across the country and address homelessness.
The Linton-on-Ouse campaign argues that the scale of the proposed accommodation is disproportionate to the local population. Based on Government proportionality figures cited by the group, the village would theoretically receive about three asylum seekers rather than 1,200.
The Government argues that moving asylum seekers into former military facilities is intended to reduce the burden on poorer communities currently hosting large numbers of people in hotels.
A Home Office spokesman said the Government was “closing every asylum hotel” and moving asylum seekers into basic accommodation, including former military sites.
For Burnham, the clash exposes a broader problem: a government promising to reduce asylum costs while simultaneously spending heavily on accommodation, and pledging to end rough sleeping without yet convincing critics that its strategy will deliver a lasting reduction.
The political question is increasingly not whether ministers can announce ambitious targets, but whether taxpayers can see a credible calculation behind them.
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