UK

Third of migrants quit asylum camp at former RAF base


Charles Hymas
Tue, 15 August 2023

The development at RAF Wethersfield is a fresh blow to the Government’s plans to move migrants onto larger sites and out of asylum hotels - David Rose for the Telegraph

A third of the migrants in an asylum camp at a former RAF base have quit the site, claiming to be potential victims of modern slavery or turning their back on the conditions.

Sixteen of the first 46 Channel migrants to be moved to the camp at RAF Wethersfield, near Braintree in Essex, last month have been transferred to hotels by the Home Office or decided to leave so they can live with relatives.

Those who have left to stay with relatives are required to provide evidence of addresses and answer to immigration bail.

It is understood that up to a dozen of the migrants were from Eritrea and are said to have been potential victims of modern slavery, which made them “unsuitable” for the camp under the Home Office’s rules.

The Home Office could have been left open to legal challenge if it had kept them on the 800-acre site, with officials understood to have decided to move them into hotels.

It is a fresh blow to the Government’s plans to move migrants onto larger sites and out of asylum hotels, which are costing taxpayers £6 million a day.

It follows last week’s evacuation of 39 asylum seekers from the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, after the discovery of Legionella bacteria, which can cause Legionnaires’ disease, a potentially fatal form of pneumonia.


Wethersfield is one of two disused RAF bases being converted by the Home Office into the UK’s first dedicated asylum camps. It is expected to hold up to 1,700 adult male migrants. RAF Scampton, in Lincolnshire, is due to take its first residents in October and will house up to 2,000 men.

Both have been designated by the Home Office to take migrants directly after their arrival on small boats across the Channel, but are subject to High Court legal challenges by local councils seeking to shut them. The councils claim they are in remote, inappropriate locations that place unsustainable pressure on local services.

The rules for determining who is housed in former Ministry of Defence bases, barges or other vessels could open up the Home Office to more modern slavery claims.

They advise Home Office officials that migrants are unsuitable for such sites or room sharing if they may be a victim of modern slavery, torture, rape or physical violence, or if they are disabled or elderly.
‘Slapdash approach’

Steve Smith, the chief executive of Care4Calais, which supported more than 50 asylum seekers who refused to go onto the Bibby Stockholm, said: “We understand that several of those seeking asylum who are housed at Wethersfield have suffered from torture, modern slavery and trafficking.

“Even the Government’s own guidelines state that individuals who have experienced such horrors are not suitable for housing in barracks and barges. This slapdash approach is shameful.”

It is understood that a further 50 migrants have been moved onto the camp in the past week, with numbers expected to pass 100 in the coming week.

Senior Tory MPs said there was no reason why victims of modern slavery should not be housed on the former airbases. On said: “They are safe, secure and protected, with police available for any interviews.”

A Home Office spokesman said the £6 million a day spent on housing 51,000 asylum seekers in hotels was unacceptable. “We continue to ensure the accommodation provided is safe, secure, leaves no one destitute and is appropriate for an individual’s needs,” they said.