A Piddington resident has hit out at the Home Office after plans to house over 3,000 asylum seekers in their tiny village have surfaced.
Speaking to GB News, Ian Darby declared it is “beggars belief” that the site was originally earmarked to house more than double the number of asylum seekers they have been informed of.
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Villagers are now demanding answers over fears that the planned asylum centre could become far bigger than first thought.
A newly seen document cites a capacity of 3,510 asylum seekers at the MOD Bicester site near Piddington, although the Home Office insists those were early drafts and the site remains capped at 1,256 people.
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Reacting to the document, Mr Darby told GB News that residents are “clearly concerned” that the number of asylum seekers being moved into the site could eventually reach the 3,510 figure.
He said: “Clearly we’re concerned and it’s slightly beggars belief that if there was some original thinking at sort of 3,500 people, that they’d still be daft enough to include an old report that is no longer relevant in this consultation.
“Some of us are a little bit more suspicious and worry that that is potentially their ultimate plan, which for this village, just to remind everybody, would be ten times the size of this village. It’s a takeover. It’s a complete destruction of a beautiful little village.
“Frankly, whether it’s 1,256 or 3,500, we still plan to fight it incredibly hard because we think it’s the wrong site for everybody in the wrong place.”
Mr Darby feared that because the Home Office has previously estimated the site can hold more than 3,000 asylum seekers, the MOD site will be “top of the list” should a surge in migrant crossings occur.
He explained: “In reality, the noise that these individual sites that are being proposed are creating for the Government right now is enormous, and it’s going to get higher.
“So if I were sitting in their shoes and this was open even initially at sort of 1,200, and you did have a rush of new asylum seekers arriving, you’re going to come here first, aren’t you?
“Because you’ve already won the battle for want of a better description, you’re not going to take it to a new site. So I think we have every reason to be highly skeptical and concerned.”
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Asked by host Emily Carver whether residents know the latest on the plans for the site, Mr Darby admitted he “wishes they knew something”.
He told GB News: “As you know, the plan is for consultation at the moment, which shuts on the 17th of September.
“We’re putting in all of our feedback into that, and we will then ultimately wait for the decision.
“We have legal options that we’re going to consider before that, but we simply don’t know.
“There is activity on the site as we speak now, but this whole planning application that they put in is subject to so many key documents, whether they be ecological, electrical, sewage, water – none of it has been prepared yet.
“So there is a danger that the Government will sign something off without all of the appropriate documents in place, and we will hold them responsible for that. If that happens.”
Asked how the creation of the asylum centre will impact the villagers, Mr Darby stressed that they will have no access to the most basic amenities, and it will be transformed “forever”.
He concluded: “We’re just not set up for it, we’ve got no pubs, we’ve got no shops, we’ve got nothing here with 350 people in a little rural village. If if this starts at whatever size, it will transform this village forever.”
In a statement, a Home office spokesman said: “It is categorically untrue to suggest we are seeking to house 3,510 people at the MOD Bicester.
“As our planning application clearly states, we are considering the site to accommodate up to 1,256 asylum seekers.”
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