Home Office moves asylum seekers at ex-RAF base back into hotels despite pledges

Asylum seekers are being moved out of the Government’s flagship new accommodation site, which was designed to reduce the number of people housed in hotels, and back into hotels.

i understands that 70 asylum seekers have been moved out of RAF Wethersfield, which was converted to asylum accommodation last year in order to crack down on the amount of money being spent on housing asylum seekers.

The cost of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers is around £8m a day.

The asylum seekers were notified of the intention to move them through signs put up around RAF Wethersfield this week.

Home Office sources insisted that the move was temporary as the department works to fulfil the terms of a Special Development Order (SDO), which would enable it to use Wethersfield as asylum accommodation long term.

An SDO is a form of secondary legislation that grants planning permission for specific kinds of development in a particular area.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have always been clear that the use of asylum hotels is unacceptable which is why we moved asylum seekers on to former military sites, thereby reducing the impact on local communities. We delivered on our plan by closing one hundred asylum hotels by the end of March.

“Planning permission has been granted to extend the use of Wethersfield for three years under a Special Development Order and we will be using a phased approach to gradually increase the number of asylum seekers accommodated at the site.”

This story is being updated