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Date submitted

10 July 2026

Submitted by

Interested party

Dear Planning Inspectorate, I write to object to the proposed expansion of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre (reference is CROWN/2026/0000004.) The proposal seeks to increase the number of people who could be accommodated at Campsfield from 160 to 400. This 250% increase in places is proposed on Green Belt land. So the expansion would result in more buildings, reducing the openness of the Green Belt, and adding demands on local roads, services and infrastructure. Critically, the Home Office has failed to justify this expansion at Campsfield. It has not explained why it favours permanent development on protected land over using existing capacity or other estate options. Key information has been withheld or redacted from the Home Office proposals, including details of the layout, transport, lighting, landscaping, and how the site would operate. This makes it difficult to understand, let alone judge, the full impact of the proposal. It's hard not to believe that these details have been omitted deliberately, so diminishing perceptions of the full impact of the proposed development. On a societal level, it has been long-proven that Immigration detention causes serious harm to the people detained. Its effects are felt by families, communities, legal and advice services, health services and local residents. So expanding Campsfield would have significant human and community consequences. At the same time, the Home Office is well aware of the results of its own-commissioned pilot schemes evaluating community-based alternatives to detention. These independently-judged pilots showed that immigration cases could be resolved faster, more equitably and at lower cost when applicants were living in local communities rather than being held in detention. So again, this raises suspicions. It looks like the proposed expansion is as much motivated by seeking to appease right-wing critics of the government's management of immigration cases as it is by genuine need, or value for money. For all these reasons, I ask that the application be refused. If it is not refused at this stage, it should be examined through a full public inquiry. Yours faithfully,