An army training camp in East Sussex is set to be the next military site to house asylum seekers under Home Office plans to end the use of hotels by 2029, The i Paper understands.
The Home Office is understood to have earmarked Crowborough Training Camp as a potential site to hold people who have crossed the Channel on small boats in the next few weeks.
The camp is owned by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and is used by army cadets from across the country.
It comes after a damning cross-party report found billions of pounds had been “squandered” on asylum accommodation by Home Office mismanagement.
Expected costs of accommodation contracts for 2019-2029 tripled from £4.5 billion to £15.3 billion after a “dramatic increase” in demand following the pandemic and a huge spike in small boat crossings, the Home Affairs Committee found.
MPs urged ministers to set out a clear strategy to cut the use of asylum hotels and end the “current failed, chaotic and expensive” system that has wasted taxpayers’ money.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed said today the Government is looking at housing asylum seekers in modular pop-up accommodation on disused military bases.
An announcement was due “within weeks” with military sites representing the “least expensive option available” to house asylum seekers, he said.
Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed last month that the Government was looking to expand the use of military sites to house asylum seekers and move people out of hotels.
So far this year, 36,954 migrants have crossed the Channel on small boats, more than the whole number who arrived in 2024.
Last year, Crowbourgh Training Camp was one of the military sites used to house Afghans who served alongside the British Army before being evacuated to the UK through the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Programme (ARAP).
During the Covid pandemic, it was also used as as a quarantine facility for British troops deploying and returning from operations.
The site holds brick barracks-style accommodation as well as training facilities and a firing range.
Currently, the ex-military bases in use as large-scale accommodation for migrants are Wethersfield in Essex and Napier Barracks in Kent.
Napier, which has a capacity of 328, was due to close in September, but may now remain open until December.
Capacity at Wethersfield increased from 800 to more than 1,200 in July just four months after it rose from 580.
Following the Home Affairs Committee report, chairwoman Dame Karen Bradley said the Home Office “isn’t fit for purpose”.
She called for the department to be split up into two, with one sector managing borders and another crime because they “need different skill sets”.
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The committee warned in its report that a promise to appeal to popular opinion without a clear plan for alternative accommodation risks “under-delivery and consequently undermining public trust still further”.
Asked for his response, Sir Keir Starmer said: “We inherited a huge mess in relation to pretty well all departments in Government, and that includes the Home Office.
“If you take the issue of asylum hotels, for example, we had years under the previous government where they didn’t process claims, so tens of thousands of people didn’t have their claims processed.”
He said the Government is processing asylum claims more quickly and there are more removals of those with no right to be in the UK.
He added: “So, we’re taking the action. But I can’t tell you how frustrated and angry I am that we’ve been left with a mess as big as this by the last Government.”
The Home Office and the MoD were contacted for comment.
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