Twice in January, ambulances rushed to the former RAF airbase at Wethersfield in a remote part of Essex, now the Home Office’s biggest mass asylum accommodation site, to attend to suicide attempts. On each occasion, an asylum seeker was admitted to hospital. Both survived.
Acts of self-harm have been common since part of the 325-hectare (800-acre) site, which first opened in 1944, started to be used to house refugees in July 2023.
It provides barracks accommodation where about 500 male asylum seekers from across the world sleep three to a room. They are able to leave the site, but are not allowed to work. It is about 8 miles to the nearest town and some spend their days walking around the surrounding countryside with nowhere to go.
One man begged to be moved out to join his heavily pregnant wife. His request was refused. She gave birth alone to a stillborn baby and only then was he moved.
Before he was sacked earlier this month, the then independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal, condemned the “overwhelming feeling of hopelessness” on the site, warning it was at immediate risk of descending into criminality, arson and assaults on staff.
One Iranian asylum seeker who fled because of his opposition to the government in Tehran, said: “My world, which I had hoped would light up again in this country, was plunged into darkness when I was transferred to a prison called Wethersfield.
“I was identified in Iran, I had to lock myself up in remote rural houses for a while, and now here I have exactly the same feeling and the same memories have come back to me. I am afraid that I will die in this place.”
Wethersfield is one of two mass accommodation sites the Home Office has opened recently, along with the Bibby Stockholm barge, a hulk-like structure moored in Portland, Dorset.
Neither have been out of the headlines for long. Last December, there was the suspected suicide of an Albanian asylum seeker, Leonard Farruku, 27 – a tragedy that happened after the identification of potentially fatal legionella bacteria on the barge. MPs who visited recently said that overcrowding was putting the mental health of the men living there at risk.
NGOs have described the Home Office’s policy of using mass accommodation sites for asylum seekers as a dangerous, untested political and social experiment. Critics say the approach will not save public money and instead leave hundreds who have come to the UK for sanctuary at best in limbo and at worst at risk of suicide.
Ministers insist the policy is part of the solution to fix the UK’s broken asylum system. When the Home Office announced its plans for mass accommodation sites in the summer of 2021, officials said the plan was to reduce hotel use and instead provide asylum seekers with basic, safe and secure accommodation while their claims were being processed.
“The level of despair coming out of Wethersfield is horrific,” said Katie Sweetingham of the charity Care4Calais. “In many cases people that have previously not had any mental health issues prior to coming to the UK experience a rapid decline in a matter of weeks after their arrival at the camp, to the point where they are now thinking about harming themselves or taking their own life.”
Before the pandemic, the vast majority of asylum seekers were accommodated in shared housing. Some remain in this accommodation and more of it is being sourced. Although generally of a poor standard – there have been reports of collapsed ceilings, rodents running amok and bedrooms colonised by black mould – asylum seekers can at least cook their own food, have friends and family visit and are able to participate in the life of the local community.
When Covid arrived, tens of thousands of asylum seekers were placed in hotels because of the infection risks of accommodating people in close quarters. They became a visible target for far-right anti-migrant groups in a way they had not been before and were accused of living a life of luxury, while hard-working Britons struggled. Anti-migrant activists accused asylum seekers of flocking to the UK simply to get a room in a local Ibis.
Sensitive to these criticisms, the government responded with plans for mass accommodation sites. The argument was that this way of housing the growing numbers of asylum seekers coming to the UK would be cheaper and act as a deterrent to those making the dangerous journey to the UK for economic reasons.
Napier barracks in Folkestone was first off the starting blocks with the 0.4 hectare (1 acre) site opening to asylum seekers in September 2020, accommodating about 400 people. It began disastrously. Hundreds were infected in a mass Covid outbreak and the high court found conditions there were so bad as to be unlawful.
RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, the former home of the famous Dambusters, another planned mass accommodation site, has yet to open for business. The local West Lindsey district council has issued a stop notice to restrict Home Office building works on the site and has embarked on legal action to try to prevent the Home Office from using it. Legal challenges are also under way relating to both Wethersfield and the Bibby Stockholm and an internal briefing by lawyers, seen by the Guardian, describes the sites as “racial segregation and quasi-apartheid”.
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Ministers have said little about how these mass accommodation sites have energised the far right, with activists staging demonstrations and distributing leaflets that intimidate both asylum seekers and local residents.
Misbah Malik, a senior policy officer from Hope Not Hate, which challenges extremism, said in relation to the sites: “Our researchers have seen a surge in activity from far-right groups and individuals who are intent on using this issue to sow hateful narratives, infiltrate communities and cause division. Despite sounding the alarm about this we’ve not seen any serious action from the government to deal with this.”
Last summer, officials pledged to have 3,000 people at mass accommodation sites by now but so far there are none at Scampton, which has been earmarked to accommodate 2,000 asylum seekers, just over 500 at Wethersfield, which has capacity for 1,700 and about 300 on the Bibby Stockholm, which has capacity for more than 500. It has been reported that the government is not planning to open more barges for asylum seekers, and it is understood that no ports have expressed any enthusiasm about hosting them.
While the government insists mass accommodation sites are cheaper than hotels, officials have not disclosed the full financial accounts. A series of remedial works with costs unknown had to be carried out on the Bibby Stockholm barge to improve fire safety and the water system after the legionella bacteria was found. The number of security staff at Wethersfield has been significantly increased with costs also unknown.
Critics suspect not only that these sites are not cheaper but that they are as much about the optics for voters of cruelty as about saving cash. Nicola David of the NGO One Life To Live, which campaigns against mass accommodation sites, said: “The barge and the Wethersfield site, both reminiscent of Soviet-era gulags, send a strong message about punishing asylum seekers who presume to come here. The sites have blighted the lives of local residents too, with both those who support asylum seekers and those who don’t vehemently opposed to them.”
One asylum seeker said: “We feel that we are being used in the conflict between politicians and as advertising for the British people.”
Charities working in the sector argue the sites are just one part of the asylum conveyor belt, with the “stop the boats” refrain at one end and Rwanda at the other. The government cannot yet claim success with either. In January 2024, 1,335 people crossed in small boats, only a few people short of the high of 1,339 in January 2022. And despite handing over hundreds of millions of pounds to the Rwandan government, the chances of getting one or more flights off to the east African country remain unclear after losses in the courts and condemnation of the scheme internationally.
Asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm barge say despair among those onboard is increasing every day. “My mental health is devastated,” said one. “I wake up every morning expecting to be deported to Africa. The government does not treat us as human beings with dreams and lives. We are just numbers.”
A Home Office spokesperson said officials took the welfare of asylum seekers “extremely seriously”.
“That’s why we have welfare officers on site round the clock and all residents have access to a GP service delivered by a local healthcare provider including mental health support. A 24/7 helpline provided by Migrant Help is available to raise any concerns.”
