Northeye: Government spent £15.3m on East Sussex immigration detention site, figures reveal

Northeye, in Bexhill, was bought by the Government for £15.3 million on September 21, 2023, according to a Freedom of Information request released by the Save Northeye campaign group this week.

The group said an earlier Land Registry title search obtained by One Life To Live, an NGO which campaigns against large-scale asylum accommodation sites, found that Brockwell Group Bexhill LLP had bought the land just 13 months previously in August 2022 for £6.31 million.

The Northeye site is one of several sites announced in March this year by the Government as proposed locations to house asylum seekers.

Recently the Home Office confirmed it is exploring the possibility of Northeye being used as a detention centre for those who ‘arrive in the UK illegally’.

Jeff Newnham, who leads the Save Northeye campaign, which protests the use of the site to accommodate or detain asylum seekers, said: “There is no logical geographical reason why Northeye, in one of the UK’s most expensive areas for land, should ever have been purchased by this government.

“How did the Government allow itself to be sold, at taxpayers’ expense, a site so wholly inappropriate? A site where the only real beneficiary seems to be the vendor, which made a whopping £9 million profit.”

At the time when the purchase was completed, Mr Newnham had already lined up a legal team in preparation for an application for a judicial review of the Government’s decision to use the site, and his CrowdJustice fund, to cover his costs, has already raised almost £18,000.

Nicola David, of One Life To Live, said: “The Government cannot claim on the one hand to be solving the problem of the hotel cost when on the other hand it is buying up large tracts of expensive, yet tainted land and planning major new builds.

“It’s time for greater transparency with the taxpayer, who ultimately foots these bills. It is also time to recognise that we should revert to the pre-Covid system of allowing asylum seekers to live among us in the community, and not containing them in bizarre camps behind fences and barbed wire.”

Cllr Christine Bayliss, Labour group leader on Rother District Council, said: “This shocking waste of money is yet another example of the chaos at our borders and in the asylum system which has cost taxpayers billions.

“If the Government has £15.3m to spend in Rother, we would rather they spend it helping local residents get through the cost-of-living crisis, instead of wasting it by overpaying for land and lining the pockets of private developers.”

In September, a petition signed by more than 2,000 people opposing Government plans for Northeye, was handed to Rother District Council by the No to Northeye group, calling on the authority to oppose the plans by the Home Office.

Since the plans for Northeye were first unveiled in March, several protests have been held in Bexhill, organised by the No to Northeye group.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said it does not comment on commercial matters.

The spokesperson said: “We are committed to the removal of foreign criminals and those with no right to be in the UK, while providing value for money for the taxpayer.

“We are exploring the use of the Bexhill site for detention purposes and assessments are being undertaken to consider the feasibility. We are working with local stakeholders to ensure that any facility is delivered in a way which minimises the impact on the local community.”