Napier barracks, one of the first mass accommodation sites opened to house asylum seekers, is to be closed after years of controversy about conditions there, including a mass Covid outbreak, decrepit facilities and far-right protests.
The news is buried in a Home Office document uploaded to parliament’s cross-party home affairs committee on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the provision of asylum accommodation. In the document the Home Office states: “The Home Office intend to occupy and deliver services at Napier until September 2025, at which point the site will be handed back to the Ministry of Defence.”
Napier, along with Penally barracks in Pembrokeshire, which was used to house asylum seekers for a few months at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, were opened owing to pressures the Home Office was under to provide suitable accommodation for asylum seekers during the pandemic.
Napier has capacity for 328 male asylum seekers, who are accommodated in dormitories. There was a mass Covid outbreak in July 2021 with 197 cases identified. A high court ruling in 2021 found that the site did not meet “minimum standards”.
Initially, asylum seekers were accommodated there for an indefinite period but the Home Office subsequently introduced a 90-day limit, which the men held there said made their time there more bearable.
The use of or plans to use Home Office mass accommodation sites for asylum seekers has been controversial, with proposals to use military bases RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire and one at Linton-on-Ouse never getting off the ground.
Watchdogs criticised the Home Office for spending millions on the purchase of Northeye in Bexhill, East Sussex. The Bibby Stockholm, where asylum seeker Leonard Farruku died after a suspected suicide and where there was an evacuation after potentially deadly legionella bacteria was found, also attracted controversy and has now closed.
Only Wethersfield, a remote military base in Essex, continues to operate without a confirmed end date. Three asylum seekers were found to have been accommodated there unlawfully in a high court ruling last week, although the judge found in the Home Office’s favour on most of the broader points of the challenge.
Emily Soothill of Deighton Pierce Glynn solicitors, who has represented asylum seekers challenging conditions at Napier, said: “We welcome the news that the government plans to cease using Napier barracks as asylum accommodation. It is almost four years since the high court found, based on government evidence, that the home secretary had acted unlawfully in accommodating our clients at Napier barracks, yet it continues to be used to accommodate hundreds of asylum seekers.
“People seeking asylum, especially victims of torture and trafficking, are more vulnerable to physical and mental illness. They have the right to be treated with dignity and should not be accommodated en masse in military barracks.”
Sally Hough, the director of Napier Drop-In Centre, which provides support and activities for asylum seekers housed at Napier, said: “Housing vulnerable people in dilapidated former military accommodation scheduled for demolition is wrong and a stain on our record of being a nation of sanctuary. One unintended outcome was how the camp galvanised the local community in support of the residents.
“Mass accommodation sites like Napier barracks didn’t have their intended effect. The camps didn’t stop people from wanting to claim asylum in the UK and they didn’t succeed in dividing our community. The opening of the camp encouraged people like myself to step up and build a bridge between the camp and the local community, dispel fear and foster integration and understanding.”
The Home Office has been approached for comment.
