The Home Office has proposed a massive expansion to two immigration detention centres, bypassing local councils through fast tracked planning applications.
Campaigners said they were “shocked” and “depressed” by the news that the Home Office wanted to reopen and expand a previously closed centre and more than double the beds at another that reopened last year.
Haslar Immigration Removal Centre in Gosport was closed in 2015, a few years after it was described by the inspectorate as being “the worst accommodation in the immigration estate”.
Now, the Home Office wants to reopen and redevelop the facility, more than quadrupling beds from 130 to 600, making it one of the biggest immigration detention centres in Europe, just behind Harmondsworth in Heathrow.
At the same time, a consultation has just closed on the Home Office’s plan to scale Campsfield House IRC in Oxfordshire from 160 beds to 400. The centre was brought back into use in December after previously shutting down due to years of issues including riots.
