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Date submitted

15 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 (hereinafter, Campsfield) from 160 to 400 places. The application reference is CROWN/2026/0000004. I am responding on behalf of Rainbow Migration, a charity that supports LGBTQI+ people through the asylum and immigration system. We regularly support LGBTQI+ people who are in – or at risk of – immigration detention. We object for the following reasons. The need for expansion has not been properly demonstrated The Home Office has not clearly explained why 240 extra detention places are needed at Campsfield. It relies on broad claims about projected demand, immigration enforcement priorities and resilience across the detention estate, but the public cannot properly test the evidence behind those claims. The Home Office should be required to explain: • why existing IRC capacity is not enough; • what alternatives have been considered; • why the expansion has to happen at Campsfield; and • why permanent development on Green Belt land is justified. • This matters because the Home Office is relying on claimed need to justify development that would otherwise cause serious planning harm. If the need has not been properly evidenced, the expansion should not be approved. In particular, we note that the Home Office has previously piloted two “alternative to detention” (ATD) schemes, supporting people subject to immigration control to resolve issues with their immigration status in the community rather than detaining them. These pilots were independently evaluated by NatCen on behalf of UNHCR and found to be both more cost-effective and more humane than detention, with no evidence of higher rates of absconding (see https://www.unhcr.org/uk/media/alternatives-detention-united-kingdom). The Home Office should be required to explain why they need to expand capacity at Campsfield IRC, at considerable cost and requiring permanent development on Green Belt land, rather than investing in cheaper and more humane means of meeting their stated immigration enforcement priorities. Public scrutiny and human impact Immigration detention causes serious and sometimes irreversible harm to the people held there. The effects of that harm do not stop at the perimeter fence. Families, legal representatives, community groups, health and advice services, faith groups, local residents and local authorities are often left responding to the consequences of detention, including distress, release into hardship, safeguarding concerns, destitution, emergency support needs, removal, protest and public concern. Nor do the effects of that harm cease when a person is released from detention. Many – particularly those who have come to the UK seeking safety – will have been retraumatised by the experience, and suffer long-lasting deterioration in their mental health. The application does not properly address this harm or the wider impact of expanding detention capacity at Campsfield. While we understand that the Planning Inspectorate’s decision will focus primarily on material planning considerations, we note that humanitarian concerns are also valid and should be recorded, especially where they reinforce the need for full scrutiny of a development of this scale and sensitivity. This proposal is not ordinary infrastructure. It is a major expansion of a detention centre, and it should receive the closest possible scrutiny. At Rainbow Migration we support LGBTQI+ people who are held in the UK’s immigration detention estate, and witness first-hand the serious harm that is inflicted on this group by the practice of immigration detention. We have heard from those we support in detention that they have experienced homophobia, biphobia and transphobia from detention centre staff and other detained people, which has further traumatised these individuals – causing their mental health to decline – and has on some occasions also resulted in serious physical injuries. We are also aware of service users who have harmed themselves and attempted to take their own lives as a direct result of being detained. We have heard from service users about the shock and hurt that being detained has caused to them. As one of our service users explained: “we fled our home country for safety because we would be imprisoned because of our sexuality, because of who we are, only to reach somewhere we believed to be safe [the UK] and then be imprisoned there instead. The only thing we did was try to be safe. We now have to hide who we are again because it is not safe to be gay in here”. In the last six months we have also seen a significant increase in the number of our service users being detained in IRCs. As it is, the immigration detention system is causing escalating and avoidable harm to those detained, as recently reported in IMB’s National Annual Report (see https://imb.org.uk/news/harm-without-accountability-force-failed-safeguards-and-prolonged-detention-in-the-immigration-system/). To further increase the capacity of Campsfield would likely lead to even more vulnerable people – including our service users – being detained, and the impact on their physical safety and mental health would be extremely detrimental. Redacted and withheld information Important information has been withheld or redacted. This includes material about layout, design, lighting, transport, drainage, landscape and visual impact, and how the site would operate. Some security-sensitive information may need to be protected, but the public still needs enough information to understand the planning impacts. The Planning Inspectorate should not approve a major expansion of a detention centre on Green Belt land without proper public scrutiny. The withholding of key information makes it harder for local people, community groups and public bodies 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. Request for refusal and public inquiry For these reasons, we object to the application and ask that it is refused. If it is not refused at this stage, we 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,