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Date submitted

13 July 2026

Submitted by

Interested party

Dear Planning Inspectorate, I am writing to object to the Home Office’s proposal to expand Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre by 240 places, from 160 to 400 places. The application reference is CROWN/2026/0000004. I am responding as an Oxford resident and as a longtime researcher of the impact of immigration detention on detainees and society. I am an Associate Professor in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham and have spent nearly 20 years working and publishing on immigration enforcement. I have charted the huge harm detention does to the individuals detained, as well as their families and wider society. This includes publications such as my recent book chapter Immigration Detention and UK Families. in M Peterie (ed.), Immigration Detention and Social Harm: The Collateral Impacts of Migrant Incarceration. Routledge. The evidence is clear that detention causes serious, irreversible damage to people. This includes to people's partners and children, many of whom are British citizens. We are still discovering what that level of harm does to young people as they grow up and become full members of society, with the trauma of having had a parent forcibly removed impacting their physical and mental health, education, trust in the authorities, and identification as British. Although the Planning Inspectorate will focus on material planning considerations, human impact concerns should also be part of the public record and should be recorded, especially when it reinforces the need for full scrutiny of a development of this scale and sensitivity. The proposal to expand Campsfield is not ordinary infrastructure. It must therefore receive the closest possible scrutiny. I am concerned, for example, that a lot of information appears to have been withheld or redacted, such as information about layout, design, lighting, transport, drainage, and landscape, and how the site would operate. The public needs sufficient information to understand the planning impacts. This includes ensuring we have sufficient information about the impact of the plans on wildlife and ecology or the local biodiversity and landscape. It is especially important that the Planning Inspectorate does not approve a major expansion on Green Belt land without proper public scrutiny. The withholding of key information makes it harder for people to understand the real impact of the proposal. This is especially serious because the Home Office is using the Crown Development route, which removes the decision from ordinary local determination by Cherwell District Council. Moreover, I do not believe that the Home Office has properly explained why nearly 250 extra detention places are needed at Campsfield. It has made broad claims about projected demand, immigration enforcement priorities, etc, that cannot be properly tested. Before such considerable harm is done to individuals, families, and the public purse, I believe the Home Office should be required to explain – and evidence – why the existing detention capacity is insufficient, what alternatives have been considered, and why permanent development on Green Belt land is justified, given that it should be protected from unnecessary development. All of this matters because the Home Office is relying on claimed need to justify development that would otherwise cause serious planning harm, including harm to Green Belt land. If the need for more detention places has not been properly evidenced, the Home Office has not shown that the harm to the Green Belt is justified. The expansion should not be approved. For these and many other reasons, I object to the application and ask that it is refused. If it is not refused at this stage, I ask the Planning Inspectorate to examine the application through a full public inquiry after the consultation closes. This application raises serious questions about Green Belt harm, the scale and height of the new buildings, local infrastructure, the evidence for the expansion, and the impact of withholding parts of the application from public view. These issues should not be decided through written representations alone. A public inquiry would allow the Home Office’s case to be scrutinised in public and the evidence to be properly tested before any decision is made. Yours faithfully,