Linton-on-Ouse: Refugee campaigner calls Government u-turn on "quasi-prison" asylum seeker centre an embarrassment

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace withdrew the site from the Home Office earlier this week after a four month battle from campaigners to stop the centre, which would have housed up to 1500 lone men while their claims were processed, from opening.

Campaigners said the centre would be the “wrong in the wrong place,” and detrimental to refugee rights due to the lack of infrastructure in the small village near York.

The chief executive of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, visited the site yesterday with regional campaigner Nicola David in the wake of the shock u-turn.

Mr Solomon said: “It has to be seen as embarrassing if a Prime Minister gives a flagship speech about its approach to channel crossings, and then the Government is unable to deliver on it.

“I’m not sure we should be calling this an accommodation centre, we should be calling this the warehousing of very traumatised people in conditions that will make life very, very hard.

“What I’ve seen today just shows that it was an utterly inappropriate site.

“When you stand looking at it and you have fencing and barbed wire above you, it looks more like a military site or a quasi-prison rather than anything appropriate to house people who have lost everything through no fault of their own and have had to flee for their lives.”

The Home Office stated in the wake of the u-turn that it will “continue to identify appropriate sites for Greek-style asylum reception centres which will play a key role in reducing the number of asylum seekers in hotels.”

But Mr Solomon has urged the next Prime Minister to rethink the policy.

He said: “We’re very clear in our opposition to the Government’s approach.

“We’ve been very vocal and supportive of the legal actions taken to challenge the Rwanda plans.

“Through our work, we’ve seen shocking cases of young people whose age has been disputed placed in detention pending removal to Rwanda.

“We’ll continue to speak out and give our support to campaigners.

“There’s a real opportunity for the new Government to rethink and recognise these plans were unworkable.

“They’re not going to achieve what the Government wants them to achieve.

“This isn’t the way to defeat so-called people smugglers, all this will do is over promise to the British public on this, under-deliver and damage public trust.”

Mr Wallace made the dramatic announcement that the Linton site was no longer under consideration on Tuesday while on a campaign visit to Huddersfield with Liz Truss, whom he is supporting in the leadership race to Number 10.

The announcement came a day after fellow contender Rishi Sunak announced in the Yorkshire Post that he would row back on plans to open the centre should he become Prime Minister.

The site was due to open on the former RAF base earlier this year, but was delayed by the threat of a judicial review from the Conservative-controlled Hambleton Council.

The Ministry of Defence have not confirmed their new plans for the former air base.