A proposed asylum accommodation centre in a small North Yorkshire village could cost taxpayers an estimated £270.9mn despite operating for less than two years, according to local campaigners, intensifying scrutiny of the government’s pledge to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers.
Linton-on-Ouse, a village of about 700 residents, is being considered for a facility that could house up to 1,200 people at the former RAF base, which closed in 2019.
The proposal revives a plan first developed under Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in 2022, before the Ministry of Defence withdrew permission for the site to be used.
Linton Action, a campaign group opposing the scheme, has written to Chancellor John Healey warning that the economics of reopening the base may be difficult to justify if the government has only a limited period in which to use it.
The group’s estimate assumes the site may need to be returned to the Ministry of Defence by July 2029, followed by a six-month decommissioning period. On that basis, it argues, the centre could operate for only about 23 months.
The £270.9mn figure is the campaigners’ own estimate, not an official Home Office projection. Linton Action says its calculations draw on comparable facilities, including RAF Wethersfield, and incorporate set-up and closure costs alongside operating expenditure.
Professor Olga Matthias, the group’s spokesperson, told GB News that projected accommodation costs could reach about £240 a night per bed at full occupancy. If occupancy fell to 50 per cent, she said, the effective cost per occupied bed would rise substantially as fixed expenses were spread across fewer residents.
The group estimates costs of between £443 and £853 per occupied bed per night under different occupancy assumptions, compared with a hotel benchmark of £144.98. The figures depend on the assumptions used and have not been independently verified.
“The full costs at RAF Linton-on-Ouse must be counted,” the group’s letter states, calling for any business case to include capital works, water, sewage and electricity infrastructure, security, transport, healthcare, policing, emergency services, maintenance, decommissioning and restoration.
Utilities are a particular concern after years in which the former military site has stood unused. Reinstating infrastructure could require significant upfront expenditure before the first asylum seekers arrive.
The dispute cuts to a central tension in the government’s migration policy. Labour pledged in its manifesto to “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”, while former chancellor Rachel Reeves said the policy would be completed by 2029, with projected savings of £1bn.
But campaigners point to a 2024 National Audit Office investigation that found the earlier large-sites programme was expected to cost £46mn more than hotel accommodation. The NAO also recorded £2.9mn in expenditure on the abandoned 2022 Linton-on-Ouse proposal.
Matthias accused ministers of “frequent contradictions” over costs, arguing that the government had shifted its defence from promises of savings to its manifesto commitment to close hotels.
William Yarwood, campaigns director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said taxpayers were being “hammered by the eye-watering cost of illegal migration”. Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, argued that the Home Office had failed to make a proper assessment of the site’s fiscal costs.
Both organisations oppose the current approach to asylum accommodation. Their criticism adds to the pressure on ministers to demonstrate that alternatives to hotels will deliver savings rather than simply transfer costs to a different part of the public sector.
Linton Action is asking the government to explain how the proposal could represent value for money if the available operating window is so short. The answer will depend on the Home Office’s actual costings, occupancy assumptions, infrastructure requirements and the terms of any agreement with the Ministry of Defence.
For now, the £270.9mn figure remains a campaign estimate, not an established bill. But the controversy highlights a difficult test for the government: ending hotel use may fulfil a political promise, yet the replacement model will face its own scrutiny if the public cost proves higher than the accommodation it is intended to replace.
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