Residents near Britain’s biggest asylum seeker camp fear controversial plans to expand its capacity will put more strain on their quiet village.
Wethersfield air base in Essex currently houses around 500 migrants but this is set to increase as part of Labour’s pledge to end the use of hotels.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged last week that all asylum seekers would be moved out of hotel accommodation by the time of the next general election, due in 2029.
Latest figures show £3.1 billion was spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels in 2023-24, out of a total asylum support bill of £4.7 billion.
Using former military bases like Wethersfield – which has an overall capacity of 800 – is considered cheaper than paying for hotels.
Yet local residents in Wethersfield village are up in arms about the prospect of the site being expanded.
Celia Harris, 76, and her husband Robert, 77, live close enough to the camp to hear conversations from behind the fence from their garden.
Celia, a retired cleaner, said: ‘We did all the protests against it. We did not feel then and still do not feel that it’s an appropriate place.
‘They’ve got to stop them coming in the first place. We’re not racist. But why is taxpayers’ money being spent on them when our winter fuel allowance has been stopped?’
The village of Finchingfield which is just a few miles from an ex-American Air Force base that has been turned into a migrant immigration camp
Wethersfield Airfield Asylum Accommodation is situated on the site of an old RAF and sometime US Air Force base in rural Essex
John Sutcliffe, 77, and his wife Simone, 78, live next door to the camp with their dog Remy and are exposed to its expansion
Alan McKenzie, head of campaign group Stop Wethersfield Airbase Prison (SWAP), was infuriated by the news.
‘If they are intending to increase the capacity in Wethersfield, it would be another folly on the part of the government – It’s already been shown not to be value for money,’ he told the BBC.
‘If they’re talking about increasing the accommodation further, then it’s sheer madness…because people get unhappy up there, it’s a very enclosed environment, it’s a long way to the centre of Wethersfield village where there are no facilities.’
Personal assistant Christine Blake, 72, was also angered by plans and said: ‘I’m a single female, there are many single females in this village, and we all feel threatened and concerned.’
Retired office administrator Melody Temperley and her husband Alan, both 77, live with their extended family in bungalows on a large plot of land near the camp.
The couple said the camp had made it much harder to sell property.
Melody said: ‘We can never sell this property – they said it should be worth £900,000 but now we can’t sell it.’
Asked what she thought about the idea of using the camp to move asylum seekers out of hotels, she said: ‘They’re not going to settle in a camp after hotel life.
‘I don’t think they should be here at all. If they increased the number of people in the camp we would have a lot more men standing about doing nothing.
‘People feel intimidated. They should process them much quicker and then they could be integrated. But then they’re going to take all the social housing.’
Wethersfield parish councillor Nick Godley believes asylum seekers would be better off housed elsewhere, but insisted he has never had any problems with them
Some families have installed CCTV cameras on their homes. Pictured is the migrant camp
A resident at the asylum seeker, which is now longer used by the military
Charles, who is in his 70s, didn’t want to give his name due to fears of being labelled racist.
‘It’s quite intimidating because I am living next door to many hundreds of men who are allowed out to roam wherever they like including after dark,’ he said.
‘It’s left me feeling vulnerable. I have put a big steel gate up. It’s the threat of young men and having them shouting.
‘It would be better if they were prevented from coming in the first place. I feel like the politicians have let us down.’
Wethersfield parish councillor Nick Godley lives with wife Mair in the village centre.
Nick, 75, believes asylum seekers would be better off housed elsewhere, but insisted he has never had any problems with them.
He said: ‘There’s no hypocrite like a politician. When they opened this asylum camp the Labour party was against it and now they’re all in favour of it.
‘Setting aside whatever people feel about the way these guys get in and whether they should be here or not, sticking them in an old camp in the middle of nowhere is not good for anyone.
‘Nobody can sell their house. It is affecting people’s way of life.
‘However, the asylum seekers are not causing any harm. Whatever happens in the village that’s unfortunate, the guys up there [asylum seekers] get the blame. Sometimes it’s true, but mostly it’s not.
‘I never felt unsafe for one moment [near the camp]. They are incredibly polite.’
Alan Temperley has lived in the village for three decades but says he now cannot sell his home
Earlier this year, four former Wethersfield residents brought legal action against the Home Office for their stay there between July 2023 and February 2024. File photo
Villagers who spoke to MailOnline opposed the centre’s expansion
John Sutcliffe, 77, and his wife Simone, 78, live next door to the camp with their dog Remy.
John, a retired mechanic, said: ‘All I know is they make a right noise. I walk down the main lane and there’s a deep ditch with a plastic sheet in it and body wipes and someone has been using it as a toilet. Why?
‘They’ve got to go somewhere and the only thing is to stop them coming.’
Simone, who used to run her own curtain-making business, said: ‘You cannot take them out of four-star hotels and put them in temporary accommodation like that.
‘They are all going to be up in arms aren’t they? Living in isolation like that is what brings trouble.’
Any expansion to Wethersfield would against Sir Keir Starmer’s election pledge to close it.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper herself insisted last year that the site could not be ‘seen as either a sustainable solution for housing asylum seekers nor value for money for the taxpayer’.
The mooted expansion of the former airbase and the separate site in Huddersfield – which consists of a 650-capacity former student accommodation block bought by the Home Office last year – was revealed by the BBC.
In response to the reports, a Home Office spokesman said the government was seeking to develop ‘a more sustainable and cost-effective asylum accommodation system’.
‘Our use of any property or Home Office-owned site will be used in line with the permissions set by planning permissions,’ they added.
The centre of Wethersfield village
More than 30,000 asylum seekers, many of whom arrived illegally in small boats, are currently housed in about 200 hotels across Britain.
Earlier this year, four former Wethersfield residents brought legal action against the Home Office for their stay there between July 2023 and February 2024.
They claimed officials acted unlawfully by housing them at the site when it was ‘not suitable’ because of their characteristics which included being victims of torture and human trafficking or being disabled.
The Home Office opposed the challenge, saying its allocation system was ‘not incapable of being operated lawfully’.
But High Court judge Mr Justice Mould backed the four men’s claim and accepted the site had not been a ‘suitable’ place to house them.
He said: ‘In this case, the only conclusion I am able to reach on evidence is that the defendant did not attempt to assess the equalities impacts of the proposed policy change.’
