Council chiefs have called on the Home Office to obtain council consent well in advance of any decisions around asylum accommodation, as the Government announces plans for three new military sites to house asylum seekers.

The Home Office is seeking planning permission to use Ministry of Defence sites at Bicester in Oxfordshire, Barnham in Suffolk, and Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire, which could collectively house around 3,750 asylum seekers.

The Government is also looking to extend existing sites at Crowborough in East Sussex until 2030 and Wethersfield in Essex beyond 2027.

The LGA, which said it wanted to work with Government on developing a better system for accommodating asylum seekers, warned that local government must play a crucial role in any new arrangements.

Wethersfield Asylum Accommodation Centre – already the UK's largest such site – faces a permanent expansion of 55%, taking its standard capacity from 800 to 1,245.

Braintree District Council leader Tom Cunningham said the council was ‘bitterly disappointed’ and that the community had been ‘let down once again’ by the Home Office, citing previous indications from the Prime Minister that Wethersfield would close.

‘Since March 2023, when the Home Office first told us of their plans, we have been clear that this disused airbase, in a very rural area, does not have the infrastructure to support a site of this scale,’ he said.

Border Security and Asylum Minister Alex Norris said:?'We promised to close every asylum hotel and hand them back to communities, and that is exactly what we are doing.

'Twenty more hotels have closed, and hotel numbers have more than halved since their peak. Instead, we’re moving asylum seekers into ex-military sites that are a far cry from the hotels the last Government left us with.'