'Unable to cope': Anger as Home Office to build asylum centre at North Yorkshire RAF base
Previous plans to use the RAF base as an asylum centre for up to 1,500 single men were abandoned in 2022 amid fierce opposition from local residents.
Political leaders in North Yorkshire have reacted with dismay to a new plan to create an asylum centre at a former North Yorkshire RAF base.
The Home Office has earmarked RAF Linton-on-Ouse as one of three Ministry of Defence sites to provide accommodation for migrants as it looks to end the use of asylum hotels.
The government will seek planning permission to house up to 3,750 people at Linton, and former RAF bases at Bicester in Oxfordshire and Barnham in Suffolk.
It is understood that the North Yorkshire base could be used to accommodate around 1,200 single men.
Previous plans to use the base as an asylum centre for up to 1,500 single men were abandoned in 2022 amid fierce opposition from local residents and the threat of legal action from the former Hambleton District Council.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke, Conservative MP for Wetherby and Easingwold, said closing asylum hotels and using former military bases “is not a policy I would be opposed to”.
However, in the case of RAF Linton-on-Ouse “nothing had changed” since the previous plans were dropped.
He told The Yorkshire Post: “We have shown in the past, four years ago, that the Linton-on-Ouse site is unable to cope with 1,000 people going into a small village with no shop, no amenities.
“I have been told by utility companies that they cannot supply the electricity and water demands, and that would need upgrading.
“Four years ago the site was rejected on technical grounds, those technical grounds have not changed.”
The MP said the village would be “overwhelmed” by the arrival of more than a thousand people.
“It simply would not able to handle that many people who can’t drive,” he added.
“The thing is, they’re not held within the base; they’re allowed to come and go, and the whole community just wouldn’t be able to cope.”
Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, Sir Alec demanded to know why the Home Office had announced the plans without discussing with constituency MPs first.
He said on Monday, when the House of Commons resumes sitting he will ask the minister: “These technical challenges have not changed - why do you now deem it to be appropriate?”
Councillor Carl Les, Conservative leader of North Yorkshire Council, said the authority had also not been notified in advance of the announcement that the government was again proposing to use the former base as an asylum centre.
He added: “We understand it may well be 1,200 asylum-seeking young males, but we don’t know that for definite.”
The senior councillor also believes the rural base is not the right location for the centre.
“This is a camp beside a village where there are no services or facilities for 1,200 young males who are not detainees, so have every right to come and go.
“Not only will we be seeking meetings with the government about this, but also with the mayor and the deputy mayor to discuss our concerns with them.”
North Yorkshire councillor Malcolm Taylor, who represents the Huby and Tollerton division for the Conservatives, was involved in the previous campaign to stop use of the base.
He said: “I am dismayed that this has come back to the village and I really feel for the local community who went through considerable angst and stress last time.
“For them to have to go through that again is just massively disappointing, and I’ll support them in every which way I can.”
The use of the bases came as the government confirmed a decision to stop using Allerton Court Hotel in Northallerton, and 19 other hotels around the country, to provide accommodation for asylum seekers.
Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Alex Norris, said: “We promised to close every asylum hotel and hand them back to communities. That is exactly what we are doing here in North Yorkshire.
“Twenty more hotels are now closed across England, hotel numbers have more than halved since their peak, and we are moving people into large, basic sites that are a far cry from the hotels the last Government left us with.
“This is a system being brought back under control – and we will not stop until the job is done.”
The Home Office said the closure of the hotels would save taxpayers £170m this financial year.