Former home secretary Priti Patel has backed a legal challenge against plans to turn an Essex RAF base into a migrant camp, the Telegraph reported.
Patel has written to home secretary Suella Braverman to back Braintree Council’s bid to scrap Essex migrant camp plan.
The former minister’s stand is a blow to Braverman’s attempts to end the use of asylum hotels.
Patel now supports a high court application by the Braintree council for an injunction to challenge the plans to house up to 1,700 asylum seekers at the former Wethersfield airfield.
According to the council, the site is unsuitable due to lack of local services to support migrants, impact on the local Wethersfield village that numbers just 700 and the limited local transport infrastructure.
It is one of five housing sites identified by the Home Office to reduce the 51,000 migrants currently held in hotels at a cost of more than £6 million a day.
The others include the former Dambusters base at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, a former prison HMP Northeye near Bexhill, Catterick army barracks in Rishi Sunak’s constituency and potentially a ferry or barge berthed at Portland port in Weymouth, Dorset.
The high court is likely to hear Braintree council’s plea on Wednesday (5).
The issues raised by Patel are lack of information provided to the council on the scale of the site, how the asylum seekers will be managed, the length of time it will be used and the impact assessment.
She has expressed concern over the lack of controls on the movement of 1,700 single male asylum seekers
Wethersfield is in the constituency of foreign secretary James Cleverly, who already said the site is not appropriate.
Patel represents the neighbouring Essex constituency of Witham, which includes Braintree, where residents have also raised their concerns.
When Patel was home secretary she attempted to turn the former Linton-on-Ouse RAF base in North Yorkshire into a 1,200-migrant asylum camp, but it was ultimately scuppered.
Patel argued that the plans for RAF Wethersfield have been rushed through without the comprehensive and extensive engagement.
David Sidwick, Dorset’s police and crime commissioner, expressed concerns about the resource implications of policing an asylum barge in Portland port at Weymouth.
“I have written to say that from the perspective of it being a good idea, it’s absolutely the wrong time and in some respects, it is in the wrong place in terms of where it will be given that Weymouth is a tourist destination,” Sidwick is reported to have said.
Meanwhile, Tory councillors in Bexhill are also preparing to raise concerns about the plans to turn HMP Northeye into an asylum camp.
