'I can scream': campaigners react to government RAF Linton-on-Ouse migrant plan
Ministers have pledged to do “whatever it takes” to close asylum hotels and are braced for a battle over plans to move the migrants into former military barracks.
Campaigners who successfully fought-off a plan to house migrants at a former military barracks in their isolated North Yorkshire village say they could “scream” at news the plan has been resurrected by the Home Office.
The Government announced on Thursday night that the RAF facility at Linton-on-Ouse, near York, would be part of a new plan to accommodate 3,750 asylum seekers at Ministry of Defence sites.
Ministers have pledged to do “whatever it takes” to close asylum hotels and are braced for a battle over plans to move the migrants into former military barracks.
RAF Linton-on-Ouse is one of three MoD sites where the Home Office is seeking planning permission to turn it into a camp for asylum seekers.
This comes just four years after there were celebrations in the village, when the then defence secretary Ben Wallace scrapped proposals to house up to 1,500 migrants at the disused site, following a high-profile local campaign against the plan.
Locals organised a series of protests, with the plans eventually being rejected on technical grounds.
One of those campaigners, Prof Olga Matthias, was asked for her reaction to the new plan, she said: “I can scream. Is that good enough?”
She added: “Who knew that stupidity has such a big, long shelf-life?
“We’re utterly and completely gobsmacked. Why are they doing this?”
She confirmed that the new announcement had come out-of-the-blue, saying: “It was thrust upon everyone yesterday.
“There’s been absolutely no consultation by the Government, none whatsoever.”
Asked if the Linton Village Action Group thought it was the end four years ago, she said: “Yes, we did. For all the reasons that that we won the campaign last time – infrastructure, dental, the land floods, it’s isolated, there’s no public transport.
“There was a village shop. Now there’s no village shop.
“We have cars, it’s our choice to live here, but if you have no car, no prospects, what do you do?”
Prof Matthias said the site has also been further decommissioned since 2022, and some of the former military houses have been refurbished and sold.
She said: “The site has significantly deteriorated. It was a dangerous site anyway, because it’s got toxic waste all over the place, it’s got asbestos.
“There’s no power, no water, no phone lines actually on the site. So, if the cost before were prohibitive, they’re now going to be astronomical.”
And she added: “Astronomical costs when they’re spending taxpayers’ money doesn’t bother this Government.”
Prof Matthias said the Government spent millions of pounds on the previous plan, and paid out further millions in compensation to the private company slated to run the migrant centre.
She said: “Probably what the most gobsmacking thing is, is it could be the same civil servants dealing with it this time round.”
Prof Matthias said: “So, why is the Home Office thinking of doing this? Heaven only knows.
“It does seem to me that it’s important to this Government to be seen to be doing something.
“Let’s hope this will be the 35th U-turn, or however many they’ve done.”
Wetherby and Easingwold MP Sir Alec Shelbrooke told The Yorkshire Post he would raising the case in the House of Common on Monday.
He said: “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.”