Residents of Braintree, Essex, say the town becomes a "ghost town" on Thursday mornings when asylum seekers are driven in by minibus from the nearby Wethersfield Airfield. Locals report that women avoid the town centre entirely on that day, describing the environment as "horrendous".
The Home Office accommodation centre at Wethersfield Airfield has been housing asylum seekers since July 12, 2023. The Home Office informed Braintree District Council in July that the standard operational capacity of the site would rise from 800 to 1,245, and that it would remain operational past April 2027.
Surge capacity and numbers
Officials added that, in the event of higher than forecast small boat arrivals, a further 445 "surge" bed spaces could be temporarily set up. There were 1,162 asylum seekers at the end of June in what is classed by the Home Office as "other accommodation", up from 653 a year earlier. This category includes sites like the former base at Wethersfield.
More than 93,000 asylum seekers in the UK receive Government support – mostly in the form of accommodation, according to the latest Home Office figures.
Local concerns
On Thursday mornings, Braintree is said to resemble a "ghost town" as migrants are driven in on a minibus from Wethersfield. Young men get off, holding smartphones. Some are alleged to hang around, whistling at schoolgirls coming off buses.
"It's horrendous," Mike Readon, 66, told The Daily Mail in the town. "Lots of women just avoid the town entirely on a Thursday because it's a totally different environment. You see them hanging around the cash machines and then going into charity shops, haggling for a shirt that only costs a pound, trying to get it for 50p. My wife and her friends, they wouldn't come in on a Thursday, certainly not alone anyhow."
Store worker Hannah, aged in her twenties, said: "I hate this town. Working here alone as a woman is scary. On Thursdays there are no women, no kids, no locals. Just hundreds of men."
Government defence
Home Office minister Anna Turley defended the Government’s plan to house asylum seekers in former military bases in the British countryside earlier this month. She said the sites would be "self-contained" and were more manageable and affordable than housing those who have arrived in the UK illegally in hotels.
Ms Turley told LBC radio it is a matter of "fairness" for asylum seekers to be housed in such areas. She said poorer areas with lower property prices had already taken their "fair share" of migrants.
Ms Turley said: "They’re not going to be in the village, they’re going to be contained in a former military base, they will be allowed out, everything they need will be on that site."
She added: "We are looking at former military bases around the country, we’re also looking at former industrial sites, student accommodation, other means by which we can put people in secure places that is contained and is manageable – going back to the beginning of our conversation – is more affordable than putting people in hotels."
