Moving migrants into military camp ‘preferable to housing them in hotels’

Moving hundreds of migrants into a former military camp is preferable to housing them in hotels, the High Court heard.

Crowborough Shield, a campaign group based in East Sussex, is taking legal action over the government’s use of Crowborough Training Camp to house up to 540 men.

Twenty seven men were moved into the camp on 22 January this year sparking outrage among locals.

The site is now understood to be at full capacity and will house asylum seekers until 2030, with thousands of men expected to be housed there for around 80 day periods.

An earlier legal challenge was dismissed in February because it had been filed before the Home Office had officially decided to use the barracks, but Mr Justice Mould invited the group to reapply.

The judge said today (weds) it was ‘highly unusual’ for the government department to decide if it can change the use of the land from defence to immigrant housing by itself.

Mr Justice Mould said: ‘Ordinarily the local planning authority would be the first judge… they are better placed to make that judgement.

‘It is wrong in principle to treat the developer as the judge as to whether the development falls within planning regulations.’

He invited the local authority, Wealden Council, to make submissions on this.

James Strachan, KC, argued that the Home Office is facing a state of ‘emergency’ with housing asylum seekers who would otherwise be ‘destitute or homeless’.

He told the High Court using army barracks is preferable to housing migrants in hotels, saying: ‘The use of hotels has had an effect of increasing the attractiveness of the UK for asylum seekers.

‘In reducing the use of hotels in addressing the emergency one is actually addressing or mitigating the emergency that arises.

‘Any solution is never going to be easy,’ Mr Strachan continued.

‘Where one does use hotels to address the situation, that elicits the response of ‘why on earth are you using hotels when you could be using MOD land and barracks?’, and when you do…you elicit the response that you should be using hotels.’

Mr Strachan referred to the riots outside the Bell Hotel in Epping last summer which also resulted in a High Court challenge.

In that case Mr Justice Mould ruled against the council and allowed the Home Office to continue housing migrants at the Bell Hotel.

The judge reiterated his position, adding: ‘What is undeniable as a matter of fact is that the Secretary of State has to address the situation that she faces from day to day.

‘She doesn’t have the luxury of being able to say, ‘I’ll deal with this in six months time’. There’s nothing controversial about that or at least there shouldn’t be.’

Jenny Wigley, KC, representing Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (SSHCLG) said there was no conflict of interest in the government department carrying out the screening process on the request of the Home Office.

She said: ‘It was an expert screening rather than policy making, the appropriate administrative arrangements to ensure functional separation were in place, and we rely on the way in which the decision making machinery was organised.’

Ms Wigley said while Home Office officials ‘verbally chased at senior civil service level’ for the result of the screening, this did not represent them exercising influence or bias as ‘this did not involve discussion of the outcome’.

The hearing continues.
ends