Ministers are refusing to rule out sending more asylum boats to south-coast towns, despite admitting “significant challenges” at a Portsmouth port where anti-migrant disorder erupted this month.
It comes after nearly 800 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – a record number for this year.
Contingency plans are now in place further down the south coast from Kent, where most asylum seekers have been taken by rescuers and Border Force, as government scrambles to counter gangs launching boats from further down the French coast.
On 6 September, hundreds of anti-immigration protesters, including far-right activist Danny Tommo, descended on Eastney in Portsmouth after 120 migrants on a mega dinghy were brought ashore by authorities.
Crowds attempted to block the road from the local RNLI station, where migrants landed, and seven police officers were assaulted as violence flared.
In a letter to Portsmouth council, read out at a council meeting this week, the government admitted the location presented “significant logistical challenges”. It also “had an impact on the surrounding community”.
But the Home Office and Department for Transport (DfT) said ministers could not give “an absolute guarantee” that Eastney – or nearby locations – would not be used for small boat disembarkations.
Migrants are brought in to the Border Security Command compound in Dover (Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire)‘Significant logistical challenges’
In its letter, the Government said Eastney had been assessed as the safest available location to bring migrants ashore on 6 September before they were transferred for immigration processing.
The letter added while Government didn’t intend for Portsmouth to become a routine or designated location for small boat landings, more vessels could be brought ashore.
“Revised contingency arrangements have been put in place for crossings originating further west in the channel, with the objective of avoiding a repetition of the disruption experienced at Eastney,” the letter stated.
“However, ministers and operational commanders must retain the ability to respond lawfully and decisively to an emergency at sea.
“It would therefore not be responsible to give an absolute guarantee, excluding any particular location in every conceivable circumstance where life may be at immediate risk.”
The Government was now “carefully considering the lessons” from the Eastney incident – including the suitability of potential landing locations, access and vehicle movement, and local infrastructure, it said.
Ministers ‘carefully considering lessons’
“The government’s objective remains to disembark small boat arrivals in a safe and secure environment and to transfer them properly and promptly to immigration facilities in Kent for onward processing and, where appropriate, detention,” the letter added.
In Gosport, an aborted attempt to use the UK’s oldest military sea fort, Fort Blockhouse, to land 50 asylum seekers led to further protests on Tuesday night, with the migrants’ boat diverted to Dover.
Local politicians have urged the Government not to use Fort Blockhouse in Gosport as a site to land migrant small boats (Photo: Finnbarr Webster/Getty)Reform councillor Carl Inman, supporting a motion calling for Portsmouth to no longer be used as a landing place for migrant small boats, called for assurances Gosport and Portsmouth would not be earmarked again.
“The facts before us are troubling. Approximately 120 people were brought ashore at Eastney location with no reception facilities, no welfare facilities, no medical infrastructure, and virtually no capacity for managing an operation of that scale,” he said.
“It is reached by a single access road surrounded by homes, local businesses, and sits adjacent to critical transport links.
“No reasonable person would design a major disembarkation operation around such a location if other suitable options were available. Yet, that is exactly what happened.”
However the Liberal Democrat-led council voted 24 to 13 against the motion, proposed by Reform councillor George Madgwick.
‘It’s the totally wrong place’
Alan Scard, a Conservative councillor for Gosport Borough Council, warned the Government would “stir up so much trouble” if it proceeded with docking migrant boats in the area.
“You’ve got the Portsmouth Naval Base there. It’s the home of the Navy. Come off it,” he told The i Paper.
“[Fort Blockhouse] is totally the wrong place, and apparently there’s about 80% [of the facility] with no electricity at the moment. So that’s not going to be reliable.”
More than 600 local residents had responded to a council survey to oppose immigrant boats coming into local ports, he said.
Scard, alongside Gosport Conservative MP Caroline Dinenage, has also campaigned for a full planning inquiry into the Home Office’s application to expand the Haslar Immigration Removal Centre (IRC).
Haslar IRC closed in 2016, but is now being redeveloped and due to reopen next year with 130 beds.
The Home Office has applied to increase the total capacity to around 600, using the Crown Development Route to bypass the council’s planning procedures.
Immigration centre expansion concern
Dineange attacked the Government’s “utterly derisory” attitude towards local residents and has raised concerns about the introduction of three-storey buildings that were not part of original proposals.
Scard said local residents were now “smelling a rat” and accused the Home Office of “really bad” communication a lack of transparency over their plans.
“It’s almost like they’re saying, well, whatever the local people say, to hell with that. We’re going to pass it through anyway,” he said.
A public planning inquiry into the Government’s proposals is expected to start on 17 November.
Overall numbers reaching England have fallen 42 per cent compared to this time last year.
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