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Date submitted

4 August 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. Haslar has not yet reopened. The Home Office says the refurbished centre would hold up to 130 people, with reopening expected in 2027. The current application seeks permission to add up to 470 more detention places, taking Haslar to a 600-bed detention centre. I write on behalf of Scottish Detainee Visitors, which provides a visiting service to people detained in Dungavel IRC in South Lanarkshire and, along with our partners. argues for detention reform. We are the only organisation in Scotland that focuses on detention and the only charity to visit people detained in Dungavel every week. As such, we understand the impact of immigration detention on the people affected and have an interest in its use across the UK. People detained by the immigration service are frequently moved around the detention estate, meaning that SDV staff and volunteers support people who have been moved from, or will be moved to, detention centres in other parts of the country, including Haslar, when it reopens. We object to the expansion on the following grounds: The need for expansion has not been adequately explained The Home Office has not clearly explained why 470 extra detention places are needed at Haslar specifically. This is especially worrying because Haslar has not yet reopened. The Home Office is asking for permission to expand the site to 600 places before the refurbished 130-bed centre has opened or been tested in practice. The Home Office should be required to explain: • why existing detention capacity is considered inadequate; • what alternatives have been considered, and why they have been rejected; • why the expansion has to happen at Haslar; • why it is asking for an expansion before Haslar has reopened and has operated in practice. • why a locked 600-bed detention centre is suitable on this coastal site; • how the impacts on flooding, emergency evacuation, local services, healthcare, traffic, public access, ecology and the local community would be managed. This matters because the Home Office is relying on claimed need to justify a very large expansion of a detention centre that has not yet reopened. If the need for more detention places at Haslar has not been properly evidenced, the expansion should not be approved. Humanitarian concerns Immigration detention causes serious harm to the people held without time limit. There is a large and growing body of academic and policy research supporting this position. Further, as visitors to people in detention, Scottish Detainee Visitors witness every week the harmful impact it has. We see otherwise healthy people deteriorate before our eyes under the strain of indefinite immigration detention, and the separation from friends, family and other sources of support that it entails. The impacts are not only on the people who are detained. Couples are broken up and children are separated from their parents. Families, legal representatives, charities like ours, health and advice services, faith groups, local residents and local authorities are often left responding to the consequences of detention. These include distress, release into hardship, homelessness and destitution, 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. We understand that the Planning Inspectorate’s decision will focus on material planning considerations, but 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. Moreover, it is a proposal to expand a centre that has not yet reopened. The proposal is for a 600 bed locked centre where people are deprived of their liberty without time limit and without judicial oversight. It should receive the closest possible scrutiny. Flood risk, coastal safety and climate change Haslar is a coastal site next to the Solent, and parts of the site are in Flood Zone 3, meaning there is a high risk of flooding from the sea. Climate change makes this more serious because flood risk is likely to increase over the lifetime of the development through sea level rise, heavier rainfall, storms and pressure on coastal defences. This is not an ordinary building. It will be a locked, secure detention centre. People detained at Haslar would not be free to leave if there was a flood warning, severe weather, a failure of flood defences or another emergency. The Planning Inspectorate should not approve this application unless there is clear evidence that detained people, staff, visitors, emergency services and escort vehicles would be safe for the lifetime of the development, including in future climate conditions. The fact that the Home Office has produced a Flood Evacuation Management Plan does not remove this concern. It shows that flood evacuation is a serious operational issue. The plan relies on flood warnings, staff action, staged evacuation, transport arrangements, emergency services and coordination with local bodies. It also says that, in an extreme flooding event, the whole site would be required to evacuate, and that residents may need to be moved to another IRC or holding centre if transport is delayed. Other concerns are: • the scale of the expansion, traffic, parking, healthcare and emergency services, public access to the coast, ecology, heritage, lighting, noise, waste, drainage and local infrastructure. • that the Home Office has applied for outline planning permission, with only access being decided at this stage. This means the public is being asked to comment now on whether Haslar should become a 600-bed detention centre before all the practical details are finalised. Some information has also been withheld or treated as sensitive, making it difficult for the public to understand the full impact of the proposal. Request for refusal and public inquiry For the reasons above, 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 that 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