Fury has erupted in a Hampshire town at plans to place hundreds of illegal migrants at a detention centre.
The Haslar Immigration Detention Centre in Gosport is set to grow from 150 beds to 600 across three storeys, housing foreign criminals and illegal migrants awaiting deportation.
That would make it one of the largest immigration removal centres in Europe, close in size to Harmondsworth near Heathrow, which holds 676.
Homeowners near the site say their property values have fallen by as much as £25,000 since the plans emerged.
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The Home Office is also pushing to expand Campsfield House in Oxfordshire from 160 to 400 beds.
Both expansions were originally proposed by the Conservatives but are now being delivered by Labour at an estimated cost of £399million.
The projects have been classified as nationally important, meaning ministers rather than local councils control the planning process under the Crown Development scheme.
Neighbours in Gosport say two years of building work – which starts every morning at 6am – has made their lives “hell on Earth”.
Dave Wakefield, 69, who lives opposite the site, said: “We know it is going to be different – how can you go from 150 to 600 people?”
“But they have got 600 people and 450 staff; where’s the planning and how’s it going to be governed?” he added.
Another living 50 yards from the centre said locals feel like “prisoners in our own homes” and warned they can’t sell their properties.
“We are trapped. We feel like prisoners,” she said.
Another resident, 67-year-old Sandra Card, accused officials of dishonesty about the true scale of the centre.
She said: “They have said there was going to be 600 people, but they said it was going to be a two-storey building and now it is going to be three.”
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Gosport MP Dame Caroline Dinenage has raised the issue in Parliament and written to the Home Secretary after a promised ministerial meeting was cancelled.
She is pushing for Gosport Borough Council to handle the planning application instead of a Government-appointed inspector.
In her letter to the Home Office, she said: “It takes decision-making away from local people and into the hands of civil servants and Labour politicians in Whitehall.
“I have serious concerns that the Government are trying to push this application through with minimal scrutiny, which isn’t acceptable.”
Under the Crown Development scheme, the local planning authority can make representations, but the final decision rests with an inspector appointed by the Secretary of State.
A Home Office-funded community impact assessment claims the development will generate 341 additional jobs during construction.
The assessment states the employment boost “has the potential to provide opportunity to local people who are currently unemployed or with poor labour market contributions, as well as through apprenticeship opportunities providing wider social value in the borough.”
The Government has even tried to talk up the scheme by saying it will contribute £19.7 million every year to the local economy through direct and indirect employment.
Redevelopment is being carried out in two phases, with Phase One refurbishing existing buildings to provide 130 beds by autumn.
Phase Two involves new-build accommodation, with the first detainees expected to arrive in spring 2027.
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