The Home Office asylum site dividing a historic English village ...Middle East

With its 13th-century church, cottages and green, Wethersfield is the picture-perfect quaint English setting.

But less than two miles away from the centre of the Essex village, a former RAF base housing hundreds of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats has caused deep divisions in the community.

Before last year’s general election, Sir Keir Starmer said MDP Wethersfield, which has housed single male asylum seekers since 2023, needed to close.

But rather than shutting its gates, the number of people there has continued to increase.

The latest expansion, to accommodate hundreds more migrants, was announced in recent days amid a summer surge in Channel crossings as record numbers make the journey.

In February, capacity at Wethersfield increased from 580 to 800, before a rise to 1,245 was confirmed on 24 July in a letter from the Home Office seen by The i Paper .

The letter to local councillors said there are “no plans” to go above that figure, with regular occupancy levels expected to return in October.

When The i Paper visited Wethersfield this week, some in the community expressed sympathy for those housed at the base. But others were bitterly opposed to numbers increasing and called for the site to be shut down.

That’s a view shared by charities who say the camp has been like a prison for those inside.

In 2023, migrants protested after outbreaks of scabies, with medics warning of concerns over suicidal thoughts and severe psychological distress. Fights have also broken out among those housed there.

The same year, there were demonstrations against the opening of asylum seeker accommodation on the ex-military base.

Thirty miles away in Epping, protests outside a migrant hotel have descended into clashes with police in recent weeks, after an asylum seeker was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl. The man denies the charge.

There are no signs of similar rallies planned at Wethersfield, with Michael Staines, an independent councillor representing the areas for Braintree District Council, stressing the local situation was different.

“We’ve had a couple of issues, but I think unlike Epping, where the hotel was literally on the high street, there is some wire and security between the nearest public access roads, footpaths, etc and the nearest asylum accommodation,” he told The i Paper.

He recognised, however, that raising the capacity was a concern for locals and had been a “shock” for councillors, who he said were caught off guard by the Home Office announcement.

Asylum seekers at the site are not detained, with a shuttle bus three times a day to Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford.

They can also walk to the village, said Mr Staines, who called for Governments around the world to tackle underlying global issues causing people to migrate.

That’s a belief shared by Nick Godley, the former chair of Wethersfield Parish Council, who said while he was “not over the moon” about the capacity increase, conditions at the base had improved for residents.

“There’s been a certain amount of trouble on the base which the Home Office has managed to keep a lid on,” he said. “We don’t really have a lot of detail of what’s happened up there, but they haven’t really affected the community.”

He believes failing to address issues such as additional catering facilities could lead to trouble at the site, which is run by Clearsprings Ready Homes. “But if they’ve got their heads around it may be OK. They’re moving people through the site quicker now, which obviously helps. I believe the stay is down to something like 70 or 80 days now,” he said.

“It’s a big increase. I suspect there may well be trouble, but we just don’t know. It’s been fairly peaceful up there lately.”

He said he had sympathy for the Government grapping with the “insoluble” issue of mass migration.

In her spending review, Chancellor Rachel Reeves vowed to stop using taxpayer-funded hotels by 2029, saying this would save £1bn. But that leaves the question of where to house people arriving in small boats.

Simone Sutcliffe, 78, who lives yards from the airbase’s barbed-wire fence, said people felt “let down” by the Government, adding she was “not happy” about capacity increasing.

She claimed there had been issues with asylum seekers defecating along the country road, and called for the military to be reinstalled at Wethersfield.

“James Cleverly has also let us down. And Priti Patel. She was against it as well,” she said. “Originally, we were only supposed to get a couple of hundred and it grew and grew.”

Her husband, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “Whatever we say doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. Nothing can ever be done. It’s a total waste of time whatever we say.”

Another resident living opposite the base said: “It doesn’t really affect us. They’re quite good. They’re not coming up here very much. We have lost on the value of our houses.

“They’re mostly young men. You’ve got to expect trouble. They’ve got nothing to do. They’ve got football pitches now. But it’s a long winter”.”

Speaking through the perimeter fence, Ali, a 21-year-old asylum seeker from Sudan, said he arrived in England on a small boat a month ago two years after fleeing the war-torn country on his own.

He added that he was learning English and hoped to start working if his asylum claim was successful.

Conditions inside the base were good, he said, with three people sleeping per room and bus journeys into nearby towns

However, in the village, Albie, 22, said his partner now refuses to go to Braintree town centre due to concerns over the number of migrants being dropped off there.

“She said they walk past and they just stare at you. The other week, I was driving back from work up the road and there must have been 50 or 60 of them on the road up there sitting drinking tins of beer, smoking some weed,” he said.

His friend, 23, said increasing the numbers by 50 per cent was a “terrible” idea. “I’m concerned about safety, I’m concerned about terrorism. They aren’t vetted at all,” he said.

Another local resident, Pamela Price, 86, said: “I sincerely hope that the powers that be will do their job properly and organise these people. They [the Government] can’t do right for doing wrong.”

Allan McKenzie, who heads campaign group the Fields Association, said he had difficulty believing the Home Office when it came to capacity numbers at Wethersfield, describing the plan to boost numbers to more than 1,200 as “lunacy”.

He said: “Nobody trusts the Home Office any more on what they say, and therefore we take that comment with a pinch of salt.

“When you get together in groups of young men, that’s when more of the trouble is likely to occur. I think getting up to 1,200 you’re much more likely to see that happening

“That has historically been the case. And I’m not sure that the Home Office has learned by its mistakes.”

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