Officials urged Braverman to halt asylum plan for RAF Scampton

Civil servants advised the location caput to wantonness plans to location asylum seekers astatine a erstwhile RAF basal successful Lincolnshire, it has emerged.

In an email from February, seen by the BBC, a elder Home Office authoritative advised Suella Braverman to halt enactment connected the tract astatine RAF Scampton.

The authoritative noted "significant challenges to progress" connected the site.

The Home Office said interior departmental discussions were a regular portion of its decision-making.

It comes aft West Lindsey District Council, wherever the basal is located, mislaid its High Court bid for an injunction to halt enactment connected the site.

The interior email was portion of grounds referred to during a tribunal proceeding connected Thursday.

RAF Scampton is 1 of a fig of subject sites the Home Office wants to person into large-scale asylum accommodation to location asylum seekers waiting for their claims to beryllium assessed.

When it announced the plans to person it successful March, the section said it wanted to trim the outgo of lodging radical successful hotels, presently moving astatine astir £6 cardinal a day.

The Home Office says up to 2,000 asylum seekers could beryllium housed astatine RAF Scampton, a basal celebrated for being the erstwhile location of the Red Arrows and the World War Two Dambusters squadron.

The assembly had precocious secured £300 cardinal from a developer to regenerate RAF Scampton.

In court, the council's lawyers said the Home Office's determination to crook the basal into migrant accommodation would "kill off" the plan, calling this "perverse".

The email, dated 8 February from a elder authoritative successful the Resettlement, Asylum Support and Integration Directorate - does not spell into item astir the objections but does marque notation to the interaction of the asylum connection connected redevelopment plans.

It recommends that the Home Secretary "agree to halt enactment connected proposals for RAF Scampton", and "immediately notify the section authorities that the Home Office are nary longer processing proposals for the site."

In court, Home Office lawyers insisted the regeneration task had been explicitly taken into relationship by the location secretary.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the section said the subject sites would supply "cheaper and much suitable accommodation for those arriving successful tiny boats".

"Not lone are these sites much affordable for taxpayers, they are besides much manageable for communities, owed to healthcare and catering facilities connected site, 24/7 information and the intent built, harmless and unafraid accommodation they provide," the spokesperson added.

West Lindsey District Council is inactive going up with a broader ineligible situation to the government's determination to usage RAF Scampton.

Braintree District Council successful Essex is besides progressive successful akin ineligible enactment implicit plans to crook Wethersfield Airfield into accommodation for asylum seekers.