A new asylum camp has been approved near a village in rural Oxfordshire that ‘left the UK’ over the plans.
Piddington held the vote in September as the government eyed up MOD Bicester to place 1,256 lone male asylum seekers.
MP Greg Smith announced on Facebook this evening that Housing Secretary Angela Rayner had approved the controversial scheme.
Smith said the decision showed the Government ‘don’t give a stuff’ about residents of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
‘This is totally outrageous and proves this government don’t give two hoots about us here in Bucks,’ he said.
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‘I will keep working on two fronts – firstly to explore every avenue to get this decision overturned and secondly work with our police to ensure our villages are properly protected when the camp is opened up.
‘Never give up!’
In her letter, Rayner said she had approved the project ‘subject to conditions’.
Her Tory counterpart, shadow home secretary Chris Philip, called the move ‘sickening’.
‘I have met many women from the village who are scared for their safety but Angela Rayner doesn’t care,’ the Croydon South MP wrote on X.
Wrong Plan Wrong Site, a group campaigning against the MOD Bicester site, told Metro the decision ignored ‘crucial matters’.
The government, it added, failed to address issues about the site’s ‘safety, suitability or deliverability’.
Chair Janet Chamdal said: ‘We are extremely disappointed that the Government has granted planning permission to MOD Bicester Site A, despite more than 3,000 public objections and significant concerns raised by statutory authorities, including Oxfordshire County Council.
‘The decision grants permission, but it does not resolve fundamental questions about the site’s safety, suitability or deliverability.’
‘Our message remains simple: prove it works before you proceed’, she added.
Proposals to house 1,256 lone male asylum seekers at MOD Bicester had caused uproar with local villagers in Piddington.
The matter was so contentious it triggered a symbolic independence referendum in which 285 residents voted for the ‘Principality of Piddington’.
Piddington locals told Metro at the time that house values as well as the safety of children were reasons for objecting to the accommodation.
‘We are terrified. Having a thousand men so close to the play park where families and children gather is just wrong,’ said one.
‘It’s not about Nimbyism, the government are just not listening.’
Several other sites have been earmarked for camps by the Home Office, which is pushing to move asylum seekers out of hotels.
These include plots of land in Barnham, Suffolk, and Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire.
Officials previously said £1billion of taxpayers’ money would be saved by closing every asylum hotel in the country.
Metro has contacted the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for comment.
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