First asylum seekers moved into former army camp

The first asylum seekers have been moved into a former military site in East Sussex, the Home Office has confirmed.

Twenty-seven men seeking asylum have arrived at the Crowborough training camp, which will eventually be scaled up to house more than 500 migrants.

The government said the move was part of its “mission to end the use of expensive hotels”, with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood saying “Crowborough is just the start”.

There have been frequent protests against the plans, which were first announced last year but had been put on hold.

The government said moving to large sites like Crowborough was an important part of its “reforms to tackle illegal migration and the pull factors that make the UK an attractive destination”.

Mahmood said: “I will bring forward site after site until every asylum hotel is closed and returned to local communities.”

More than 400 hotels were opened under the last government at a cost of £9m a day, according to the Home Office.

Now just under 200 remain in use, with overall asylum costs down 15%, it added.

Wealden District Council leader James Partridge said housing asylum seekers at Crowborough was the wrong decision.

But he added: “We do need to make the best of it”.

Partridge called on the community to come together “in the way we did when the Afghan families and Ukrainian refugees arrived”.

Racheal Millward, the deputy leader of Wealden District Council, said the Home Office had not engaged with the community or properly detailed the plans.

“That means the alarm, fear and possibility of misinformation has just gone up and up,” she told BBC Radio Sussex.

In the early hours of Thursday, there was a heavy police presence at the camp and a minibus appeared to enter the site.

Footage showed a minibus entering the camp at about 03:00 GMT.

The announcement of the plans in October sparked mixed reactions from the community.

Some were concerned about safety and the potential impact on local services, though others called for compassion.

Crowborough Shield, which describes itself as a non-political, voluntary residents group, launched a legal case against the plans in December.

A spokesperson for the group said: “Despite our collective, lawful, peaceful and consistent efforts to get the home secretary to listen to our concerns, she has ignored them.”

Kim Bailey, who chairs Crowborough Shield, told BBC Radio Sussex housing asylum seekers in camps costs a “hell of a lot more” that hotels.

It could also increase the impact on communities because of “greater numbers”, she added.

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp called it “another day of shame for the Labour government”.

He accused the Home Office of having “kicked out” army and RAF cadets who use the site for training every year.

The Home Office said “robust safety and public‑protection safeguards” were in place at Crowborough, along with specialist security on site and 24/7 CCTV.

“All asylum seekers will have been screened against policing, criminality and immigration databases before arriving,” it added.

The Crowborough site was previously used to accommodate Afghan families evacuated during the withdrawal from Kabul in 2021 while they were resettled elsewhere.