Immigration centre approved (From thisisoxfordshire)
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Immigration centre near Arncott approved
8:04pm Thursday 2nd April 2009 in News By Sam Mcgregor
Sarah Hayward, front, and Bill MacKeith gave leaflets to councillors before the meeting
Britain's largest immigration detention centre, planned for a site near Bicester, was today given planning consent.
Members of Cherwell District Council’s planning committee voted by nine to three, with one abstention, to approve the UK Border Agency’s plan for the centre, which would hold up to 800 men.
The centre, on Ministry of Defence-owned land between Arncott and Piddington will be built to the same standards as a medium-security prison, with 5.2m (17ft) security fences, topped with razor wire The decision came four years after villagers won a three-year battle to stop an open-door detention centre – where asylum seekers would have been free to come and go – being built at the same site.
Action group the Coalition Against Bullingdon Immigration Removal Centre (Cabric) has vowed to fight on.
But the scheme may not go ahead it has emerged, as the UK Border Agency said it had yet to decide which of two sites to choose for the centre.
It was also recently given planning permission to extend Yarl’s Wood detention centre, in Bedfordshire.
A Home Office spokesman said the decision over which site to develop would be made later this year.
David Hughes, the district councillor for the neighbouring villages, said: “In terms of sustainability, I think it’s a poor location.”
He also called for better border controls to try to deter people from coming to the UK in the first place and said such centres would not be needed if that were the case.
Catherine Fulljames, the area’s county and district councillor, said: “The Army have a firing exercise ground that adjoins this site. What a location to put an immigration centre.”
Sarah Hayward, of Cabric, said the group was disappointed with the decision.
She said: “Because of the tight confines of the planning process they can only consider planning issues. In fact, there are many serious issues that aren’t to do with planning – the fact that people are subject to detention.”
Bill MacKeith, of Cabric and the Campaign to Close Campsfield – an immigration detention centre at Kidlington – said: “We will be looking to national organisations to take a lead – such as Liberty. Where are they on this?”
Supporting the application, Bicester councillor Debbie Pickford said: “I would very much like to see better employment in this area.”
The Home Office said the centre would create more than 500 jobs and could be open by 2012.
It would house failed asylum seekers or illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.
Comments(4)
ron.hughes
says...
8:08am Fri 3 Apr 09
hagar1
says...
9:58am Fri 3 Apr 09
DanOxford
says...
9:59am Fri 3 Apr 09
ron.hughes wrote:Even if we built an impenetrable concrete wall around the entire coastline it wouldn't help in removing the estimated 750,000 people already in the UK who have absolutely no legal right to be here.
I agree with my name-sake,the money this detention centre would cost would be better spent ensuring stricter borber controls. Thus preventing the necessity for such detention facilities at Bicester or any other location in UK.
If I thought it would help removing all these people, they could build a centre in my back garden.
If we successfully deported the three quarters of a million people who should not be here, we would not have to build houses on our greenbelt.
We now need to reverse a decade of open door immigration policy under Nulabour and fast track all the illegals to deportation.
If they really are an asset to the UK, they can apply legally through a properly administered points based system- just as I would have to if I wanted to live in Canada, the USA or Australia.
How many of us would go to any of those countries as a 'student' and overstay by- ooh- 20 years say- or simply burn our passport and claim to have nowhere else to go? My money would go a LOT further in Canada, I'd have a bigger house and a better quality of life- this doesn't in itself give me the right to live there though.
DanOxford says...
9:46pm Thu 2 Apr 09
Am I alone in thinking...???