Critics of the government’s mass housing plan say it will fail to save public money and, in a worst-case scenario, put asylum seekers at risk of suicide.
Twice in January, ambulances rushed to the former RAF airbase at Wethersfield in a remote part of Essex, now the Home Office’s biggest mass asylum accommodation site, to attend to suicide attempts. On each occasion, an asylum seeker was admitted to hospital. Both survived.
Acts of self-harm have not been unusual since part of the 800-acre (325-hectare) site, first opened in 1944, began being used to house refugees in July 2023.
It provides barracks accommodation where about 500 male asylum seekers from across the world sleep three to a room. They are able to leave the site, but are not allowed to work. It is about 8 miles to the nearest town and some spend their days walking around the surrounding countryside with nowhere to go.
One man begged to be moved out to join his heavily pregnant wife. His request was refused. She gave birth alone to a stillborn baby and only then was he moved.
Before sacking him earlier this month, David Neal, then the independent chief border and immigration inspector, condemned the “overwhelming sense of hopelessness” there, warning that there was an imminent risk of escalating into crime, arson and attacks on people. employees.
One Iranian asylum seeker who fled because of his opposition to the government in Tehran, said: “My world, which I had hoped would light up again in this country, was plunged into darkness when I was transferred to a prison called Wethersfield.
“I already knew, in Iran I had to lock myself up for a while in isolated rural houses, and now here I have precisely the same feeling and the same memories come to me. I’m afraid I’m going to die in this place.
Wethersfield is one of two mass accommodation sites that the Home Office has opened, along with the barge Bibby Stockholm, a hull-shaped design moored in Portland, Dorset.
Neither has been in the headlines for long. Last December, news broke of the alleged suicide of an Albanian asylum seeker, 27-year-old Leonard Farruku, a tragedy that occurred after a potentially deadly bacterium, legionella, was met on the barge. Members of Parliament who visited the site recently said that overcrowding endangers the brainpower of the men who live there.
NGOs have described the Home Office’s policy of using mass accommodation sites for asylum seekers as a dangerous, untested political and social experiment. Critics say the approach will not save public money and instead leave hundreds who have come to the UK for sanctuary at best in limbo and at worst at risk of suicide.
Ministers insist that policy is part of the solution to fix the UK’s broken asylum system. When the Home Office announced plans for mass accommodation sites in the summer of 2021, officials said the plan aimed to reduce reliance on hotels and provide asylum seekers with critical accommodation and safety while their programs were processed.
“The point of desperation emanating from Wethersfield is horrific,” said Katie Sweetingham of the charity Care4Calais. “In many cases, other people who had no intellectual fitness problems before coming to the UK experience an immediate decline within a few weeks of arriving at the camp. , to the point that they are now thinking about hurting themselves or retiring their own life. “
Before the pandemic, the vast majority of asylum seekers were accommodated in shared housing. Some remain in this accommodation and more of it is being sourced. Although generally of a poor standard – there have been reports of collapsed ceilings, rodents running amok and bedrooms colonised by black mould – asylum seekers can at least cook their own food, have friends and family visit and are able to participate in the life of the local community.
When Covid hit, tens of thousands of asylum-seekers were accommodated in hotels due to the risk of infection of hosting others in close proximity. They became a visual target for far-right anti-immigrant outfits like never before and were accused of living a life of luxury, while hard-working Britons fought back. Anti-immigrant campaigners have accused asylum seekers of flocking to the UK just to get a room at a local Ibis.
Sensitive to these criticisms, the government responded with plans for mass accommodation sites. The argument was that this way of housing the growing numbers of asylum seekers coming to the UK would be cheaper and act as a deterrent to those making the dangerous journey to the UK for economic reasons.
Napier barracks in Folkestone was first off the starting blocks with the 0.4 hectare (1 acre) site opening to asylum seekers in September 2020, accommodating about 400 people. It began disastrously. Hundreds were infected in a mass Covid outbreak and the high court found conditions there were so bad as to be unlawful.
RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, the former home of the famous Dambusters, another planned mass accommodation site, has yet to open for business. The local West Lindsey district council has issued a stop notice to restrict Home Office building works on the site and has embarked on legal action to try to prevent the Home Office from using it. Legal challenges are also under way relating to both Wethersfield and the Bibby Stockholm and an internal briefing by lawyers, seen by the Guardian, describes the sites as “racial segregation and quasi-apartheid”.
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After the Promotion
Ministers said little about how those mass accommodation sites have reinvigorated the right, with activists staging protests and handing out leaflets intimidating both asylum seekers and local residents.
Misbah Malik, policy manager at Hope Not Hate, which fights extremism, said of the sites: “Our researchers have noted an increase in activity by far-right and American outfits who aim to use this factor to sow narratives of hate. and cause division. Although we have raised the alarm about this, we have not noticed any serious action by the government regarding this problem. »
Last summer, officials pledged to have 3,000 people at mass accommodation sites by now but so far there are none at Scampton, which has been earmarked to accommodate 2,000 asylum seekers, just over 500 at Wethersfield, which has capacity for 1,700 and about 300 on the Bibby Stockholm, which has capacity for more than 500. It has been reported that the government is not planning to open more barges for asylum seekers, and it is understood that no ports have expressed any enthusiasm about hosting them.
While the government insists that mass accommodation places are less expensive than hotels, the government has not disclosed the full monetary accounts. A series of repair works, of unknown cost, had to be carried out on the barge Bibby Stockholm to protect the protection and water. formula after the discovery of legionella bacteria. In Wethersfield, the number of security guards has increased in particular, and prices are also unknown.
Critics suspect not only that such sites aren’t cheaper, but that their goal is both to make the electorate feel ruthless and to save money. Nicola David, of the NGO One Life To Live, which campaigns against mass accommodation sites, said: “The barge and the Wethersfield site, reminiscent of Soviet-era gulags, send a strong message about the desire to punish asylum seekers who claim to come here. The sites have also ruined the lives of local residents, whether they are those who welcome asylum seekers or those who do not vehemently oppose them.
One asylum seeker said: “We are being used in confrontation between politicians and as exposure to the British people. “
Charities operating in the sector say such sites are just one component of the asylum conveyor belt, with the chorus of “stop the boats” at one end and Rwanda at the other. The government still cannot claim to have succeeded in any of those. In January 2024, another 1,335 people crossed the crossing in small boats, just a few shy of the peak of 1,339 reached in January 2022. And despite delivering loads of million pounds to the Rwandan government, the chances of getting one or more flights to the East African country remain unclear after court defeats and foreign condemnation of the project.
Asylum seekers aboard the Bibby Stockholm barge say desperation among those on board is growing every day. “My intellectual aptitude is devastated,” said one. I wake up every morning waiting to be deported to Africa. The government doesn’t treat us like human beings with dreams and lives. We’re just numbers.
A Home Office spokesperson said officials took the welfare of asylum seekers “extremely seriously”.
“That’s why we have social staff on site 24 hours a day and all citizens have access to a GP service provided through a local physical care provider, plus intellectual fitness support. A 24/7 helpline can be counted on through Migrant Help to raise any issues. Concerns.