Ministers’ plans to put thousands of asylum seekers into two military bases have been challenged in the high court, as dozens of people were moved to one of the sites.
West Lindsey district council is challenging the government over the plans to move people into the RAF Scampton site in Lincolnshire, while Braintree district council and a local man, Gabriel Clarke-Holland, are bringing a case over moves to Wethersfield airbase in north Essex, where the Home Office started placing asylum seekers on Wednesday.
The high court challenge, a hearing to seek permission for judicial review, was brought by the two councils and Clarke-Holland against the home secretary and the levelling up secretary.
The 46 asylum seekers who arrived at Wethersfield on Wednesday were taken to a processing facility in Kent over the weekend after small boat crossings.
Home Office officials said that along with 1,700 asylum seekers – all single adult men – who they hope to move to Wethersfield when it is at full capacity, there will be 4,200 new bed spaces created by capacity at the Bibby Stockholm barge, which will be moored in Dorset, and at Scampton.
Cheryl Avery, the director for asylum accommodation for the Home Office, said the site at Wethersfield would be “fully functional” by autumn, adding that after the arrival of the first people the Home Office would now “ramp up”.
There is an on-site GP surgery, accommodation blocks, a dining hall with meals three times a day, a multi-faith centre and recreation facilities, including an indoor basketball court and a gym. “We do have a shuttle bus facility that will take the asylum seekers on site out to the local area but it’s all managed really carefully and that’s done on a regular basis as well,” said Avery.
She added that people would not stay at the site for more than nine months.
The three claimants argued in the high court that the plans were being forced through by Suella Braverman using wartime emergency powers to circumvent adequate planning consultations.
Lawyers for Clarke-Holland said the judicial review claims were highly significant for asylum seekers and communities across the UK, because they will affect whether the government can set up “potentially unsuitable and harmful military-style accommodation for asylum seekers, without any consultation, in remote areas of the UK, by using emergency powers to bypass planning regulations”.
Mrs Justice Thornton DBE heard arguments in all three claims jointly to decide if they should be granted permission to proceed to a full hearing. The court heard that the far-right group Britain First has demonstrated at Wethersfield.
The claimants argued that government should not rely on a planning rule known as Class Q – where planning permission is not required because usage is for a maximum period of 12 months when there is an “emergency” – while in fact the government’s intention is to use the sites for a much longer period. Therefore, they argue, ministers should obtain planning permission and an environment impact assessment screening.
In written arguments submitted to the high court, the government dismissed these arguments and said that if any longer-term use was required planning permission could be sought further down the line.
The Home Office stated that an “emergency” could be defined not just as a one-off event but as something that could occur “over a period of time and/or which is of a continuing nature”.
Officials warn that there is the possibility of between 120,000 and 140,000 asylum seekers arriving in the UK each year and that there was a “pressing need for contingency accommodation for destitute asylum seekers”. They urged the judge to dismiss the three claims.
