by Bethany Rielly

News Reporter

THE Home Office faces legal action over plans to move hundreds of asylum-seekers to a “prison camp” at Yarl’s Wood detention centre. 

Construction of temporary portacabin units on land next to the notorious Bedfordshire removal centre is already underway. 

Up to 200 asylum-seekers could soon be moved to the new site where they will be held while waiting for decisions on their claims.

The plans are believed to be the first time the government has considered housing refugees on the doorstep of a removal centre. 

But the Home Office could be forced to halt the plans after local campaigners yesterday announced their intention to challenge the move in the courts. 

Local resident and Stand up to Racism campaigner Rosie Newbigging and lawyers claim that the Home Office “cut corners” in its rush to build the new site, failing to obtain planning permission or carry out the necessary impact assessments.

The government is using emergency planning to construct the site which allows it to bypass applying for full planning permission. 

Ms Newbigging said this means that there’s been “no consultation, none of the usual scrutiny by responsible agencies, and in fact there has not even been publication of the plans in the public domain.”

The Home Office has already come under fire for the rapid development of a former army barracks in Pembrokeshire and Folkestone, where 600 asylum-seekers are being held. 

Both sites have been targeted by the far right and fuelled local tensions, with local people complaining that the sudden transfer of hundreds of vulnerable people has left services unable to support them. 

Campaigners have expressed fears that asylum-seekers at the Yarl’s Wood camp would face similar risks. 

Care4Calais founder Clare Moseley said: “The prison-style camp the Home Office is building at Yarl’s Wood will be a place of misery for refugees, when what they need is a place of safety.”

Refugee Action chief executive Stephen Hale said it was “inhuman” to place traumatised people in “the shadow of an immigration detention centre.” 

“The government must urgently rethink its decision and start acting with compassion and common sense,” he said. 

Ms Newbigging has sent letters before action to the Home Office and Bedford Borough Council, and intends to issue judicial review proceedings should there be no satisfactory response. 

Minister for Immigration Compliance Chris Philip, said: “To ensure we have sufficient accommodation available to meet our statutory obligations we plan to use a vacant site adjacent to the existing Immigration Removal Centre to accommodate asylum seekers while their claim is being fully processed.”