Housing over 1,000 asylum seekers near a small North Yorkshire village would leave local women outnumbered six to one, a Labour MP has warned.
MP's warning over RAF Linton-on-Ouse
Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central, said converting RAF Linton-on-Ouse to accommodate around 1,200 single adult men would overwhelm the nearby village of roughly 600 people. The base sits beside a primary school and nursery, is served by just four buses a day into York, and faces severe shortages of water, sewage capacity and electricity.
Ms Maskell said: “It’s just the wrong site. The last government realised that, once they got into the detail.”
“All we’re saying to this Government is that it’s really important that they recognise that too, because the site is in a worse state now than it was when the Government last looked at this.”
Wider government strategy
The proposals form part of a wider Government strategy to end the use of asylum hotels by moving around 3,750 people into three disused military sites, all located near villages. Similar plans for Linton-on-Ouse were abandoned in 2022 after intense local opposition, but the site is again under active consideration, reported The Times.
Ms Maskell has written to border security and asylum minister Anna Turley and will meet Home Office officials this month. Ms Maskell is one of several Labour MPs raising objections to the military-site plans.
Opposition in Oxfordshire and Suffolk
In Oxfordshire, residents of the village of Piddington, home to fewer than 400 people, staged a symbolic vote in favour of seceding from the UK in protest at proposals to house 1,250 single adult male asylum seekers in a nearby disused Ministry of Defence depot. The site borders a children’s play area.
Parish council chairman Tim McNally said the village accepted a national responsibility to help house asylum seekers but objected to the scale, location and lack of consultation. Mr McNally said: “Just because we are what you might consider an affluent area it doesn’t mean high capacity.”
Terry Jermy, Labour MP for South West Norfolk, has also written to object “in the strongest possible terms” to plans for a former base at RAF Barnham in neighbouring Suffolk. Mr Jermy cited severe pressure on local services, including dentistry, hospitals, ambulances and mental health provision, and described the site as “entirely unsuitable”.
Government's push to reduce hotel use
The push to use military sites comes as ministers try to reduce hotel use. As of March, 20,885 asylum seekers — 21% of the total — were still in hotels, while 72,768 were in other accommodation.
The Government has closed 13 hotels, bringing the total below 160, down from a peak of nearly 400 under the Conservatives. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ms Turley have both argued that affluent areas must take a “fair share” of asylum accommodation. Ms Turley said housing people mainly in deprived communities has fuelled “civil unrest” and cannot continue.
A Home Office spokesman said the government is “closing every asylum hotel and moving asylum seekers into basic accommodation including ex-military sites”. The hotel population has fallen 35% in the past year and 63% from its 2023 peak, with overall asylum costs down by £1billion since the election. Officials say they are working to disperse people fairly across the country while listening to local concerns, ensuring all communities are treated equitably throughout the entire process.
