Thirty nine asylum seekers who are thought to be children have been housed on a former military based designed for adults, The i Paper can reveal.
An estimated 700 asylum seekers are currently living at RAF Wethersfield, Essex – but 39 have been referred to the local council’s children’s services.
The former military base was converted to provide accommodation in 2023 in an effort to reduce the amount of money being spent on hotels for asylum seekers, but it has been mired in controversy since it opened.
It is designed only for adults but aid workers supporting residents have warned of a “mental health crisis” on the site, with an ambulance called on average three times a week last year.
A Home Office spokesperson confirmed “age disputed” people had been housed at the site but the number had been reducing.
“Additional steps have been put in that have led to a decline in age dispute cases at the Wethersfield site in recent months,” they said.
It comes after The i Paper revealed aid workers had identified 15 children who were wrongly classed as adults and living at Wethersfield.
Of these, five were taken into children’s social services and are living in care, another had their age definitively accepted as a minor, and the other cases were still undergoing age verification by the National Age Assessment Board last year.
The Government had promised local authorities that asylum seekers who had been classified as adults but claimed to be children would not be sent to RAF Wethersfield.
Essex County Council confirmed 39 referrals to Children’s Services had been received for asylum seekers living at the site between its opening in July 2023 and March 2025.
The referrals, released under Freedom of Information laws, are believed to have been made by staff at the site or aid workers supporting asylum seekers living there.
The Council could not confirm what had happened to the referrals or whether all were confirmed to be children.
The i Paper understands at least some of the individuals remained at the site.
How could children be housed at an adult migrant site?
There are widespread concerns that children are being wrongly identified as adult asylum seekers.
An investigation from The i Paper found that hundreds of asylum seekers under the age of 18 are being wrongly classified as adults and moved to adult accommodation sites.
This is because when an asylum seeker arrives in the UK, Border Force officers can reject the age they claim to be and give them a new date of birth within minutes.
They are then entered into the asylum system as adults.
Officials have been accused of changing dates of birth based solely on an initial visual assessment, often lasting just minutes, shortly after the asylum seekers arrive on UK shores, despite the fact some have ID documents showing they are under 18.
The spokesperson said the Home Office has “robust processes in place to verify and assess an individual’s age, including through the expertise of the National Age Assessment Board.”
When local councils receive a referral to Children’s Services, they have 24 hours to determine what type of response is required, depending on the level of risk identified to the individual and what action could be taken.
Rachel Goodall, Head of Asylum at Refugee Action, said that the “dire” conditions at the site have a “catastrophic effect on people”, and that it was “deeply troubling that dozens of children may have been sent there.”
“The system at ports for checking age puts young people in grave danger. Immigration officers have an interest in judging age-disputed children as adults to reduce processes and work,” she said.
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“Only qualified, independent and culturally sensitive social workers carrying out Merton compliant age checks will reduce the number of children wrongly assessed as adults.”
Merton is the legal standard for age assessments, which complies with the findings of a 2003 court case against the London Borough of Merton.
Steve Smith, CEO of charity Care4Calais which supports asylum seekers at the site, said that it was inflicting “despair and anxiety” on its residents and was “not suitable accommodation for adults, never mind unaccompanied asylum seeking children.”
“It is a complete failure of consecutive governments that children have been sent to the Wethersfield camp to suffer,” he said, calling on Labour to deliver its promise of closing the site.
It comes after the High Court ruled on Friday that three asylum seekers had been unlawfully accommodated at the site because the Home Office had failed to take into account their experiences of torture, mental health conditions and disabilities.
An estimated 700 asylum seekers are currently living at the site as the Government increases capacity from around 500 to 800, despite Labour initially pledging to close it.
There are currently up to six people sharing a room, aid workers with knowledge of the site have said.
A Home Office source said that the welfare of individuals was of utmost importance, adding everyone housed at the site has round-the-clock access to welfare officers, a GP service and mental health support.
Essex Council was approached for comment.
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