Bicester asylum centre could cost taxpayers £1bn, warns MP

The planned centre at MoD Bicester, which would house more than 1,250 people, has sparked concerns from Calum Miller, MP for Bicester and Woodstock.

Setting up the site could cost over £250 million, equivalent to nearly £200,000 per bed, with the total cost over 10 years topping £1 billion.

He said: "Housing over 1,250 asylum seekers at MoD Bicester is the wrong plan for local communities, asylum seekers and the taxpayer.

"This is a site with no facilities: no accommodation, no power, no water, no safe transport. It also has a series of buildings riddled with asbestos and may have unexploded munitions.

"This is not a plan to put asylum seekers in existing MoD accommodation; it is a plan to build brand-new asylum-seeker accommodation on MoD land."

The cost of housing asylum seekers at Bicester MoD could rise to £1 billion over 10 years, warns the MP (Image: Ed Nix)

He argues the money could better be used to tackle the backlog and bring down the number of people waiting for a decision. 

"Before the Government spends nearly £200,000 just to put each bed in the camp, it should stop and think", he said.

Asylum and Borders Minister Anna Turley has confirmed that no contracts have yet been issued, no final decision has been made, and that cost assessments were still ongoing.

Mr Miller has since written to the minister urging the publication of the full business case before a final decision is made, along with an independent review by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) and greater transparency over the procurement process.

The Home Office is proposing to develop a section of the MoD site, formerly used for military storage but never for residential purposes.

Converting the site would require demolishing existing structures, many of which contain asbestos, and building new modular accommodation.

An official cost estimate has not been released by the Home Office, but historic figures offer some insight.

In 2005, plans to house 750 asylum seekers at the same site were projected to cost £87.7 million, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

Scaling that figure up to 1,256 beds, the cost would have reached £146.9 million in 2005 prices, or around £269.7 million today when adjusted for inflation.

The NAO has previously warned of financial risks in rushing similar projects.

Bicester MoD, where up to 1,256 single male asylum seekers are planned to be housed by the Home Office (Image: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)

An earlier plan to use MOD Bicester for asylum accommodation was cancelled, resulting in £28 million in wasted public funds.

The Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) has also raised concerns about the use of large-scale sites, noting they have "generally proved more costly to deliver than hotel accommodation" and do not offer the same potential for long-term savings as dispersal accommodation.

Mr Miller previously worked as a senior civil servant at the Treasury, where he was responsible for departmental budgets from 2006 to 2009.