𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Labour is planning to create migrant “ghettoes” on former military sites, terrified villagers fear. The Government has assembled a £150million war chest to “fund additional large sites to accommodate asylum seekers”. And some of it will be used to find and convert new unannounced sites, Treasury and Home Office sources have confirmed.

The revelation has sparked fury, with communities already fighting proposals to house thousands of migrants near them, warning of a safety crisis. Campaigners in Linton-on-Ouse, a North Yorkshire village with a population of just over 600 adults, accused Labour of trying to impose “ghettoised mega asylum hotels” on communities across the country. They believe the Home Office will need 74 sites of a similar size “if large-scale sites were genuinely the solution to the asylum backlog”.

And dozens of terrified villagers met with top Tories Chris Philp, Joy Morrissey, Kevin Hollinrake and Sir Alec Shelbrooke on Friday to warn migrants will be wandering around outside their homes within minutes of leaving the proposed 1,250-person asylum camp.

The site is next to a housing estate, complete with a toddler play area which backs onto the asylum camp and scores of young families living nearby. Families living next to RAF Linton-on-Ouse have vowed to move away because they don’t want their children growing up next to 1,250 young, single men.

Campaigners believe Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will be breaking her own promise not to house asylum seekers near a primary school. The site will be “nearly three times closer” to Linton-on-Ouse Primary School and Nursery than “any active site in the UK”. The village’s schoolchildren will have to commute past the asylum seekers every day.

Pointing to the “exposed” locations of Wethersfield in Braintree, Essex, and Crowborough in East Sussex, activists in Linton warned they will not have a “distance buffer” to prevent them from surges in crime. Instead, RAF Linton-on-Ouse will be in the “heart” of the village, meaning men will be roaming freely outside their homes the moment they leave the base.

White Rose Close is just 20 steps from the camp’s perimeter. Overlooking the detached three- and four-bed houses in the residential street is a giant former military accommodation block, which will almost certainly be used by the migrants. From the windows, houses and gardens are clearly visible. The street is now a mixture of families waiting to see if the plans are thwarted, people racing to leave and vacant properties.

And Linton Place, which is a small cul-de-sac off the main road to the camp, is becoming increasingly barren.

Families are moving out, with an increasing number of “to let” signs going up, as villagers fear their community is being destroyed. Children are also not being enrolled at the local primary school.

Martin Sanderson, from the Linton-on-Ouse Action Group, told the Daily Express: “This is a mega-hotel. This is a plan to move people out of hotels into bigger ones. Now, the issue with that is when people talk about large sites, it gives the British public an idea that this will house a significant part of the accommodation challenge.

“This is going to be a huge site in respect of Linton-on-Ouse – 1,200 people in a community of 600. But in terms of the national challenge, this is minuscule.

“We’ve also been painted as some sort of wealthy middle-class community.

“This is literally the village of the prince and the pauper. Prince William trained here at RAF Linton-on-Ouse. He went to the College Arms pub. And when he was sat in there, he was sat alongside doctors, he was sat alongside nurses, he was sat alongside gardeners. He was sat alongside people who were really struggling in life.

“This is such a diverse community. That [the site] will be a ghetto.”

Former military police officer Dean Bovington, who used to be part of the security team at RAF Linton-on-Ouse and now lives on Main Street, said: “I was military police for 28 years, and I settled in the village. During my time, I was in Afghanistan, on the ground doing checks on people and interacting with the locals in Afghanistan. It was hard to find out who they were and what they did and their background then.

“No passport, no sort of interaction with the co- country they’ve come from, how can we be certain they are who they say they are? Because they could make their name up.”

Mr Bovington admitted he is concerned “very dangerous men” will be moved into the village. He added: “To some extent, it’s where they’ve been brought up. Some of them are 15, 16 to 35-year-olds who have had experience in their own country, and that will have an effect on them and how they treat us and see us.

“Because they’re coming from a country that we probably haven’t got a great relationship with, the way we come over is not great in their country, but they still want to come here and settle because they do find it safe.”

Asked if he was concerned people with hostile views would be placed near his home, he said: “Hostile views before they came – but that hostile view is being brushed over for more economic reasons. It shows by the Home Office having pamphlets telling them not to, “please try not to rape women, and these are the reasons why. How can that sort of mentality come into this country and try and rewire their mindset?”

Laura Harman, a mother-of-two with two daughters aged 7 and 9, said: “It is not the fact that they are asylum seekers; it’s the fact that there are 1,200 men, that it’s so disproportionate against women and children in this village to have that many men suddenly here. And they’ll be bored, they don’t have anything to do.

“They’ll be hanging around the same spots that our kids might. I definitely would consider moving, but I will not be able to. Who would buy my house? We wouldn’t be able to sell if it went ahead, so we will be living here whether we like it or not. All I can hold on to is that we will continue fighting, this will not go ahead, and it’ll be life as usual in this beautiful village.”

Joe Atkinson, who lives in White Rose Close, said: “We’ve decided that we’ll be leaving Linton-on-Ouse, pretty much regardless of what’s happening there. My back garden backs onto the base. There is a fence between my back garden and the base.

“We’d sort of found a long-term home here, and unfortunately, that’s now occurring, and I just can’t take any risks when I’ve got two teenage daughters and a five-year-old daughter. My daughters are at an age where they want to be out with their friends, and I’d have worries about them walking down there in the dark.”

Campaigners in Linton believe housing asylum seekers there for three years will cost £403 million, at £527 per person per night.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “This site is not detained, so the illegal immigrants are going to be free to come and go anytime they choose, anytime of day or night. There are multiple different entries and exits from the site, right next to people’s houses, right next to a child’s playground, very close to a primary school.

“So, people that live there could have illegal immigrants wandering around their houses and around the playground 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It will be a migrant ghetto. 1,500 young men in one place is going to be a ghetto. It’s going to be very hard to police. It’s going to be a huge threat to public safety in this village. It’s completely unacceptable.”

Shadow Women’s Minister Joy Morrissey told the Daily Express: “It’s going to destroy this village. This could provide vital family accommodation, and it is going to destroy this village. People will leave, and instead of this being a vibrant place where children can go to primary school, walk along the streets, because of this migrant accommodation, all of that could be shut down. And it’s not just posing a threat to women and girls, it’s posing a threat to the entire community.”

Andy Burnham’s Government has created a £150million war chest for next year to use Wethersfield and Crowborough, East Sussex, and to develop MoD Bicester, RAF Linton-on-Ouse and RAF Barnham.

Some 744 asylum seekers are living in Wethersfield, near Braintree in Essex, and 418 people are in Crowborough, according to the latest Home Office figures. But ministers want to move 1,257 migrants into MoD Bicester, near Piddington in Oxfordshire, and up to 1,200 in Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire.

Another 930 will be housed near the village of Barnham in Suffolk.

But the Daily Express can reveal some of that cash will go towards finding and developing new sites.

Treasury documents state: “The Government is providing £150million capital investment in 2027-28 to fund additional large sites to accommodate asylum seekers and facilitate the Government’s commitment to end the use of asylum hotels.”

Some 69,038 are living in houses, flats and bedsits – including large houses in multiple occupation or HMOs – which is up from 68,719 three months ago. This includes 4,790 failed asylum seekers.