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Date submitted

30 July 2026

Submitted by

Interested party

Dear Planning Inspectorate, I am writing to object to the Home Office’s proposal to expand Haslar Immigration Removal Centre in Gosport. The application reference is CROWN/2026/0000005. I am responding because I work in healthcare at an NHS hospital, and heard that The Home Office’s own assessment accepts that access to secondary care within the local area is part of healthcare provision at the IRC. This means Haslar would not be completely self-contained. A 600-bed detention centre could create demand on local NHS services, emergency services and secure transport arrangements, including planned hospital appointments, emergency escorts, ambulance use, hospital care, mental health crisis support, medication issues and other urgent healthcare needs. The Planning Inspectorate should require clear evidence about what this would mean for services in Gosport and the surrounding area, including whether local NHS bodies, ambulance services, police, fire and rescue services have confirmed that they can safely manage the additional demand. I am really concerned about the additional pressure this will put on the NHS, as it is already under extreme duress with wait times, understaffing, and underresourcing. It is also important for me to share that I am also really concerned about immigration detention, public accountability and climate risk. I object because the proposal would expand Haslar into a 600-bed detention centre, adding up to 470 additional detention places before the refurbished 130-bed centre has even reopened or been tested in practice. In terms of immigration, detention causes serious 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. The application does not properly address this harm or the wider impact of expanding detention capacity at Haslar. I understand that the Planning Inspectorate’s decision will focus on material planning considerations, but this representation is also part of the public record. Humanitarian concerns are 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 locked detention centre on a coastal site, and it should receive the closest possible scrutiny. By public accountability, some important information is not being made available for full public consideration because it has been treated as official sensitive information. This includes information about site layout, development parameters, elevations and sections, floor plans, roof plans, landscaping, lighting, accommodation blocks, the Care and Separation Unit, the dining hall, flood evacuation, coastal modelling, ecology and biodiversity, transport and travel planning, local community impact, heritage, and landscape and visual impact. The public needs enough information to understand the planning impacts. This is especially important because, if outline permission is granted now, the basic principle of expanding Haslar into a much larger detention centre would already have been accepted. Later stages would usually focus on the details of how the expansion is built, rather than reopening the question of whether the expansion should happen at all. The flood and coastal modelling also contains assumptions and limitations. The Coastal Modelling Report states that outputs are only as good as the data inputted, that the model is a simplified representation of the existing ground levels, that roughness values involve modeller preference, and that future climate-change allowances could change and require the model to be revised [1st Horizon, Haslar IRC, Gosport Coastal Modelling Report, Rev E, 17 April 2026, section 8.0]. The Planning Inspectorate should not treat modelling as resolving the risk unless the underlying assumptions and limitations are properly tested. Without enough clear public information, it is very difficult for people to understand what a 600-bed detention centre at Haslar would mean in practice, or to respond properly. The application should not be approved unless the public has enough information to scrutinise the proposal and its impacts. Finally, the environmental impact cannot be understated. A 600-bed detention centre would not just affect the land inside the secure boundary. It could also affect roads, traffic, parking, construction movements, emergency access, public access to the coast, wildlife, ecology, biodiversity, landscape, heritage and the character of the area. The expansion would involve more buildings, fencing, lighting, CCTV, hardstanding, internal roads and operational activity. The application site also includes field areas, car parking, grassed land and land near the coast. The proposal includes changes to the England Coastal Path. Public access to the coast is important. The Planning Inspectorate should carefully consider whether the expansion would affect the safety, openness, accessibility and character of this part of the coast, as well as the experience of nearby residents and people using the area. The site is in a sensitive coastal environment, and Haslar is near historic buildings and heritage sites, including the Haslar Barracks Conservation Area and Fort Monckton. The Planning Inspectorate should require clear evidence that the proposal would not cause unacceptable harm to local infrastructure, ecology, biodiversity, protected habitats, landscape, public access, heritage or the character of the area. Coastal Partners, the council’s flood risk and coastal erosion specialists, have also warned that the site will be increasingly affected by climate change and will move further within Flood Zones 2 and 3 during the lifetime of the development. They also noted that there is no current or proposed investment to improve the flood defence, and that Environment Agency coastal erosion mapping shows the site at risk of erosion by 2055 [Gosport Borough Council pre-application advice / Coastal Partners comments, reproduced in Appendix C to the Haslar Planning Statement]. The Home Office has produced a Flood Evacuation Management Plan and relies on measures such as raised floor levels, flood-resilient construction, flood warnings, staged evacuation procedures and drainage systems. But the existence of an evacuation plan does not remove the planning concern. It shows that flood evacuation is a serious operational issue. The Planning Inspectorate should require clear evidence that arrangements would be realistic and sufficient for a locked 600-bed detention centre, including during coastal flooding, surface water flooding, storms, sea level rise, flood defence failure and emergency evacuation. This should include evidence about detained people, staff, visitors, emergency services, escort vehicles, transport providers and the local road network. For these 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 flood risk, coastal safety, climate change, emergency evacuation, the scale of the proposed expansion, local infrastructure, healthcare and emergency services, public access to the coast, ecology, heritage, waste, the evidence for the expansion, the harm caused by detention, and the impact of missing or withheld information. 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, Rhini Townend 30th July 2026