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Date submitted

16 July 2026

Submitted by

Interested party

The proposal to reopen and substantially expand Campsfield House (CH) represents an extraordinary reversal of previous Government policy and disregards the extensive body of evidence demonstrating the ineffectiveness, wastefulness and human cost of the UK's immigration detention system. In his 2016 Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons and subsequent 2018 Assessment of Government Progress, Sir Stephen Shaw identified significant and persistent failings throughout the immigration detention estate. His reviews concluded that immigration detention had become overused, that vulnerable individuals continued to be detained despite policy safeguards, and that detention frequently caused serious harm to detainees' mental health and wellbeing. Sir Stephen advocated a reduction in the use of detention, emphasising that it should be used only as a genuine measure of last resort, with far greater emphasis placed on community-based alternatives. His findings also exposed wider systemic inefficiency, poor value for public money, maladministration and unacceptable standards of treatment across the detention estate, including at Campsfield House. Against that background, the Conservative Government announced the closure of Campsfield House in 2018 and abandoned proposals for its expansion. That decision reflected not only the conclusions of the Shaw Reviews but also long-standing planning concerns regarding the site's suitability. Serious issues had been raised by the then Member of Parliament, Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council, local residents and numerous organisations regarding the site's Green Belt designation, inadequate infrastructure, transport impacts and incompatibility with the long-term planning vision for the area. However, only three years later, under the subsequent Conservative administration led by Boris Johnson, Government policy underwent a complete reversal. Campsfield House was selected for reopening and significant expansion as part of preparations for the Government's Rwanda removal policy. This decision was not prompted by any material change in planning circumstances, infrastructure capacity, Green Belt policy or local development strategy. Rather, it reflected a change in national political priorities associated with immigration enforcement. The planning application before the Secretary of State is therefore the product of a political decision rather than a planning-led assessment of sustainable development. The rationale for reopening Campsfield House arose from a now-abandoned national policy initiative whose legal and practical viability was repeatedly challenged and which has since been discontinued. The planning merits of the proposal must therefore be considered independently of that political context. Furthermore, the proposal conflicts directly with the strategic approach established by the Cherwell Local Plan. Policy ESD14 (Oxford Green Belt) identifies that any alteration of Green Belt boundaries should occur only in exceptional circumstances through the Local Plan process. It specifically states that the limited Green Belt review around Langford Lane and Begbroke Science Park was undertaken solely to accommodate identified employment needs under Policy Kidlington 1. Policy Kidlington 1 – Langford Lane Technology Park makes the purpose of that exceptional Green Belt review unequivocally clear. It was intended to facilitate high-value employment uses, including high-technology industries, research, science, innovation and knowledge-based businesses associated with the Oxford Technology Park, Begbroke Science Park and London Oxford Airport. The policy explains that progressive improvements to the Langford Lane employment area would reinforce the emerging cluster of high-value industries and strengthen Oxfordshire's internationally significant science and technology economy. The current proposal bears no relationship whatsoever to those exceptional circumstances. An immigration detention centre is not an employment-led development, does not contribute to the innovation economy envisaged by the Local Plan, does not support scientific or technological enterprise, and does not fulfil the economic objectives that justified the exceptional release and review of Green Belt land in this location. Instead, it sterilises land strategically identified for knowledge-based economic growth and introduces an institutional use that is fundamentally incompatible with the long-term planning vision for the Langford Lane corridor.The proposal also conflicts with the strategic objectives of both the adopted Cherwell Local Plan 2011–2031 Part 1 and the emerging Local Plan, which seek to protect the Green Belt, manage sustainable growth, safeguard environmental assets and ensure that new development is supported by appropriate infrastructure. Rather than supporting those objectives, the development would place additional pressure on an already constrained highway network, increase traffic congestion, generate additional environmental impacts and prejudice the planned development strategy for this important area of North Oxford. The proposal is fundamentally inconsistent with both national and local planning policy governing development within the Oxford Green Belt. Section 13 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), particularly paragraphs 152–156 (or the equivalent provisions in the version applicable to this application), establishes that the essential characteristics of Green Belts are their openness and permanence. The Government attaches substantial weight to any harm to the Green Belt, and inappropriate development should not be approved except in very special circumstances, which will not exist unless the potential harm to the Green Belt, and any other harm resulting from the proposal, is clearly outweighed by other considerations. No such very special circumstances have been demonstrated in this case. The claimed need for the development arises solely from a Government policy choice concerning immigration detention rather than from any inherent planning or locational necessity. Political expediency cannot itself constitute a very special circumstance capable of outweighing the substantial harm arising from inappropriate development within the Green Belt. This conflict is reinforced by the emerging Cherwell Local Plan 2042, which continues to identify Langford Lane, Begbroke Science Park and London Oxford Airport as a strategic location for high-value employment, research, innovation and technology-based investment. The emerging plan reiterates that previous Green Belt reviews were undertaken specifically to facilitate these economic objectives and continues to promote the Langford Lane corridor as a gateway for advanced employment uses rather than institutional development. The proposal therefore conflicts not only with national Green Belt policy but also with the clear and consistent strategic planning framework established by Cherwell District Council over successive Local Plans. It frustrates the carefully planned economic strategy for the area, undermines the purpose for which exceptional Green Belt review was originally justified, and represents a wholly different form of development from that envisaged by either adopted or emerging planning policy. significant is the Government's decision to pursue this development through the Urgent Crown Development procedure. While lawful, this process substantially limits the normal operation of the democratic planning system by removing local planning authority decision-making and restricting opportunities for meaningful public scrutiny and accountability. It is an exceptional mechanism intended for genuinely urgent Crown projects. Its use in this case, to facilitate the reopening and expansion of an immigration detention centre that had previously been closed following independent review and abandoned expansion proposals, is difficult to reconcile with the principles of transparent, evidence-based planning. Taken together, the history of this site demonstrates a striking inconsistency in Government policy. In 2018, Campsfield House was closed because independent evidence exposed the failures of immigration detention and because expansion was considered incompatible with both planning policy and local circumstances. Only a short time later, those conclusions were effectively set aside for political reasons associated with the Rwanda policy. That political reversal does not amount to a material planning justification. The development remains contrary to Green Belt policy, conflicts with the adopted and emerging development plan, imposes unacceptable burdens on local infrastructure, and seeks to expand a form of detention that independent reviews have consistently found to be harmful to individuals, operationally ineffective and poor value for the public purse. These factors weigh heavily against the grant of planning permission.The Home Office is effectively using the Urgent Crown Development procedure to circumvent the very Local Plan policies that were designed to protect this Green Belt land except for exceptional, employment-led development. I urge that a public enquiry is held, which I would attend.