The UK government is preparing to house thousands more asylum seekers on military land, with plans for three additional bases revealed at lunchtime. If planning permission is granted, sites at Bicester in Oxfordshire, Barnham in Suffolk and Linton on Ouse in North Yorkshire would together accommodate around 3,750 people, forming part of a wider effort to move asylum seekers out of hotels.
Ministers argue that the deliberately basic conditions of military camps are less attractive than hotel rooms, which they believe can act as an extra incentive for people to attempt the crossing. Alongside the three new locations, the government is also seeking to extend the use of existing military accommodation, including the site at Wethersfield in Essex and another in East Sussex.
The proposals come as the government tries to honour its promise to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers. According to the BBC's home affairs correspondent Daniel Sanford, around 20 more hotels have been closed over the last two months, among them the Bell Hotel in Epping, which became the focus of protests last summer and a symbol of local anger over the policy.
The numbers crossing the Channel in small boats have fallen substantially compared with the same period last year, but officials say roughly 11,000 people have still arrived in the first six months. With new arrivals continuing, ministers say they need somewhere to house them, and they regard military camps as a preferable option to the hotels they are trying to close.
Several of the proposed locations already carry political baggage. Linton on Ouse in North Yorkshire was put forward as an asylum site by the Conservative government four years ago, only to be abandoned in the face of strong local opposition. The site near Bicester in Oxfordshire has already been described by the local MP as completely unsuitable for the purpose.
The Suffolk site at Barnham also has a notable past, having once been linked to the development of Britain's first nuclear bomb. The choice of such locations underlines how difficult it has become for successive governments to find communities willing to host large numbers of asylum seekers without provoking resistance.
Cost is unlikely to settle the debate. According to the latest assessment, housing people on military bases has turned out to cost about the same as using hotels, even though ministers present the camps as the better choice. With planning permission still required for the new sites, local communities are expected to push back, setting up fresh confrontations over where asylum seekers should ultimately be accommodated.