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Date submitted

5 August 2026

Submitted by

Interested party

I wish to object strongly to the Home Office's proposal to expand the Haslar Immigration Removal Centre in Gosport. I am a volunteer who works with asylum-seekers in Portsmouth, assisting them in their learning of English and assimilation into the UK. There are many issues about this development that concern me and many others, including environmental impact and the impact on local health and emergency services. But I would like to highlight my objection to the whole policy of immigration detention. Detention centres were originally designed to hold someone for a short period before having them removed from this country. This is no longer the case. Some people are detained for months, even years i.e. an indefinite time. A prison sentence has a finite duration - whereas detention does not. A prison provides facilities, work and activity - whereas a detention centre does not. A detention centre causes enormous psychological harm to its detainees. I know volunteers who used to visit detainees in the former Haslar Centre before it was closed, telling me of the desperate conditions they found, and how their visits afforded a small degree of friendship, hope and humanity. I am dismayed that this detention centre is now going to be reopened and even expanded. I plead that this decision be reconsidered.