THE HOME OFFICE failed to rule out housing asylum-seekers in an asbestos-filled former prison today after the government’s spending watchdog blasted the Tories for wasting £15 million on it.
Tory ministers Robert Jenrick and Oliver Dowden “cut corners” and made “poor decisions” when they paid for the Northeye site in East Sussex, a damning National Audit Office (NAO) report said.
The “rushed and misjudged” decision was made despite the “technical due diligence and approvals process not having been undertaken.”
Shadow justice secretary Mr Jenrick announced that Northeye would be developed to house 1,200 people a month after an environmental review had identified a contamination risk from “asbestos-containing materials in existing buildings and contaminated ground” in February 2023.
The diligence report also estimated the cost of repairs to buildings at the site to be £20m.
The Home Office paid £15.4m to the vendors — Brockwell Group Bexhill LLP — a year after they bought Northeye for £6.3m.
Mr Jenrick was warned by the Cabinet Office there were significant risks with the acquisition, but the minister for immigration “approved the acquisition of the site on the same day [he received advice from the accounting officer],” the report said.
“A full investigation of the level of contamination and feasibility had not been completed before the Home Office entered into a contract to purchase the site.”
Jeff Newnham, who leads the Save Northeye campaign against the development, told the Star that the asbestos-contamination risks were widely known following a fire at the former prison in the 1980s.
Labour said the report “raises serious questions about [new Tory leader] Kemi Badenoch’s judgement to appoint someone to her shadow cabinet who has no regard for public money.”
But the Home Office declined to rule-out housing asylum-seekers at the site themselves when asked by the Morning Star today.
The department has not finalised its plans for Northeye but insisted that it “will always act in the best interests of the taxpayer.”
Lou Calvey, director of Asylum Matters, which campaigns for people to be housed in communities, not camps, said: “If more proof were needed of how ill-thought out the policy of camps in our asylum system is, this is it.
“Now would be a perfect time for this new government to show clear distance between it and the cruel, wasteful camps policy held by the previous one.
“Promise not to house anyone on the contaminated land at Northeye, and build on the good work of shutting down the Bibby Stockholm barge by moving anyone trapped in large scale camps into decent, safe housing in our communities.
“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.”
One Life to Live founder Nicola David said: “A profligate waste of money is one thing, but let us remember that these are real people that the Home Office was planning to accommodate at Northeye.
“Those fleeing war, conflict and persecution deserve our sympathy and support — it is precisely because they are seeking asylum here that the government is required to accommodate them.”
Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon said: “It is truly shocking that so much taxpayer money was wasted on buying a site that was contaminated and completely unusable.
“This reveals the scale of the chaos left in the asylum system by the last government.
“The new government needs to learn from these mistakes and create an asylum system that delivers value for money while treating people with dignity.
“This must include a complete overhaul of the asylum accommodation system which sees an end to private companies pocketing billions every year for providing unsuitable housing and instead empowers local communities and councils to deliver this service.”
The Home Office said: “Having inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain, with tens of thousands of cases stuck in a backlog, we remain committed to ending the use of hotels and housing people in more suitable and cost-effective achieving better value for the taxpayer.”
Parliament’s public accounts committee has announced it will conduct a further inquiry.
Commitee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP said that “once again, rushed and misjudged decision-making has resulted in the Home Office overpaying for an asylum accommodation site that is not fit for purpose.
“I am concerned that the Home Office deviated from standard practice, overlooked warnings about the condition of the site and lacked expertise to properly oversee the purchase of Northeye.”
