Home Office ‘cut corners’ and 'wasted' £15m on asbestos-riddled migrant camp

The Home Office spent £15 million buying a derelict prison site to house migrants which turned out to be too contaminated with asbestos to be used, according to Whitehall’s spending watchdog.

The former government, which was under political pressure to stop housing migrants in hotels, cut corners and overpaid for the Northeye site in East Sussex in 2023, the National Audit Office (NAO) says in a report published on Friday.

Northeye was "deemed unfit for its intended purpose due to contamination", after the purchase of about £15.4 million had gone through, the report reveals.

The NAO also found the government paid more than double the price the site had been bought for in 2022 - around £6.3 million.

Campaigners say the revelations prove that the policy of creating "camps" in the asylum system should be abandoned.

Lou Calvey, director of charity Asylum Matters, accused the previous government of “ignoring warnings so it could indulge in waste and carelessness, putting cruel ideology above everything else – including value for the taxpayer”.

“If more proof were needed of how ill-thought-out the policy of camps in our asylum system is, this is it," she said.

“Our new Government must take the lesson from this fiasco, and immediately abandon plans to place people seeking safety in any large-scale site like this.”

The chairman of a Commons committee which scrutinises government spending criticised the Home Office for “overpaying” for a site which was “not fit for purpose” and said MPs would make sure taxpayers’ cash was not “wasted in future acquisitions”.

The sale came after then-prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed on December 13 2022 to stop housing asylum seekers in hotels - and find accommodation in disused holiday parks, former student halls and surplus military sites.

The statement in Parliament “generated significant pressure within the Home Office to identify and secure sites for asylum accommodation at pace”, the report said.

In February 2023 planning checks revealed “high risk” contamination across the site and a further review concluded the “primary contamination risk was from asbestos-containing materials in existing buildings and contaminated ground”.

A “due diligence report” also indicated repairs to buildings could cost “in excess of £20 million” but this was not mentioned in the Home Office’s internal advice, the NAO said.

Robert Jenrick, former immigration minister, announced on March 29 2023 that his government would develop the Northeye site to house 1,200 migrants. The purchase was then completed in September 2023.

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The NAO's report concludes: “The Home Office’s attempt to acquire the Northeye site within just a few months… led it to cut corners and make a series of poor decisions.“This resulted in it purchasing a site that was unsuitable for that original purpose and it paying more for it than it needed to.”

In July this year, the Home Office said no decision had been made on the use of the site and it would “consider its strategy and broader requirements before taking a view on the future use of it”.

The Home Office noted the report was about the actions of a previous government, and said it remained committed to ending the use of hotels to house those going through the asylum system.

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