Chaos as asylum seekers leave barge and RAF base

Hundreds moved as costs at flagship sites spiral over £160m

- HOLLY BANCROFT

Rishi Sunak's flagship sites to house asylum seekers have been criticised as eye-wateringly expensive, badly run and unsuitable and now The Independent can reveal that hundreds of migrants have moved out. More than 400 asylum seekers have left RAF Wethersfield in Essex and the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset in the first three months of the year, data shows.

The government has come under fire for splashing £145.7m on the former airbase and £15.8m on the boat in Dorset, and the "prison-like" conditions. However, data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that 74 vulnerable people were moved from Wethersfield by the Home Office for their safety, and 170 people left voluntarily. The authorities say they have gone to live with friends and family but campaigners said some had become homeless because they were so desperate to leave.

A total of 162 migrants were "dispersed" from the Bibby Stockholm, the data showed. The remote airbase in Essex has seen desperate migrants attempting suicide and going on hunger strike, while one asylum seeker has died at the Bibby Stockholm.

Former home secretary Priti Patel said Wethersfield is "unsuitable for asylum accommodation", adding: “The decision taken last year by the Home Office was ill thought through, taken in haste and without adequate consideration of the impact and costs. Instead of spending large sums of taxpayers' money on this site, the government should have been investing in increasing detained capacity."

Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh, who has campaigned against the use of another military site for asylum seekers, RAF Scampton, said the number of people leaving the site "just shows how useless these military bases are for migrants".