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Date submitted

21 July 2026

Submitted by

Interested party

Dear Sir or Madam, Re: CROWN/2026/0000004 I am writing on behalf of the Oxford Brookes University UCU (Universities and Colleges Union) branch to express our views regarding the application by the Home Office for an increase in the size of the Campsfield Detention Centre. Our branch includes a number of members who live in or around Kidlington, near the detention centre. We also have several members who have been active in researching issues concerned with migration in general and immigration detention in particular; Oxford Brookes has an active Migration and Refugees Network which studies these issues from legal, criminological and sociological perspectives. We have a highly respected Department of Planning within the university and colleagues from that department are also members of our branch. In addition, branch members are involved in researching a range of global issues including conflict, ecological breakdown and international economic and political instability which form much of the background for migration flows. Our response to the proposal to increase the size of Campsfield is informed by all these perspectives. We would like to express our opposition to the proposal for a number of reasons. The proposal stands in opposition to the frequently expressed views of local people and of all the local councils in the area, including the local planning authority, Cherwell District Council. We believe that to justify such opposition the proposal would need to be backed up by urgent reasons for the expansion. In our view no such reasons have been provided in the application. We see no evidence of a national shortage in detention capacity requiring an expansion of this kind. There is no detailed financial information in the proposal enabling an assessment of whether it represents value for money. With regard to planning considerations, the site is located in the green belt area and development here has been allowed locally for projects promising high-value employment rather than the kinds of jobs which would be associated with expansion of a detention centre. One example of such a project is the Oxford University Technology Park, which extends up to the detention centre itself, making expansion difficult and inappropriate. The land which is earmarked for the detention centre expansion has not been used for commercial and industrial purposes for a considerable length of time; to the best of our knowledge it was used previously for recreational purposes (as a football field) when the site was a youth detention centre before 1993 and has been disused since. Taking up the broader issues relating to immigration detention, research done by colleagues at Oxford Brookes points out that `evidence from academic researchers and governmental inspection and reporting bodies suggest the treatment of individuals in immigration detention has been anything but dignified (see Alice Gerlach `Women’s experiences of indignity in immigration detention and beyond’ (Incarceration 3(2) 2022) p.4 ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. This particular paper focuses on female detainees and ex-detainees but the literature surveyed in relation to this quote covers detention in general). This research, in common with an extensive academic literature, highlights issues such as the psychological impact of being treated as a criminal and of the indefinite nature of detention, the difficulties for detainees in accessing adequate legal representation and the lack of autonomy experienced by people who are already highly vulnerable. For all these reasons we believe strongly that in view of the importance and contentiousness of the proposal to expand the centre a public inquiry is required and we wish to add our voice to support for such an inquiry and in opposition to the current application. Yours faithfully, Stuart Whigham, Oxford Brookes University UCU Branch Secretary