A Gosport resident has expressed concerns for his safety amid the Government’s plans to house 600 failed asylum seekers in a nearby detention centre.
Speaking to GB News, David Robinson said the plans are “unsettling” and are making locals feel “unsafe” in their community.
The Haslar Immigration Removal Centre is one of the closest centres to a residential area in the whole country.
Following its closure in 2015, the Labour Government has implemented plans to reopen the detention centre, which will be used to house those who have no right to be in the UK, have had their asylum claims denied or are waiting to be deported.
The first phase of the redevelopment is underway to reopen the site with 130 bed spaces.
However, the Home Office has submitted plans to expand the site to 600 beds, by adding new buildings on nearby seafront land.
Reacting to the plans on GB News, Mr Robinson told reporter Will Godley that he has lived opposite the asylum centre for 20 years.
He said: “In 2022, they decided to reopen the removal centre, and we were told it would be about six months, that they would do updates to the place to bring it up to standard, more or less, and this is actually taken three years.
Gosport local David Robinson has expressed fears for his safety amid plans to house 600 asylum seekers in his community
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GB NEWS
“Unfortunately, we’ve been subjected to noise, dust, cars parking in the opposite where we live at 6:30am in the morning, slamming doors and blocking people’s driveways.”
Fearing for his safety, Mr Robinson said the prospect of having detained failed asylum seekers across the road from his home is “unsettling”.
He said: “It makes you feel unsafe, basically. When you go to bed at night, you wonder what’s going to happen during the night or even during the day, and it’s just very unsettling.
“This used to be a really nice area to live, nice and safe, and now it’s just unknown. It’s a worry to a lot of people here.”
The detention centre will house 600 asylum seekers in the coastal town
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GB NEWS
Reflecting on recent consultation meetings about the site, Mr Robinson told GB News that locals and their concerns have been “ignored”.
He said: “We’ve just been totally ignored, that’s the truth of the situation, we just don’t exist. They had to put planning permission in for an energy station, and our houses weren’t actually on the drawings, they were drawings without our houses, so they tried to say that actually, we don’t actually exist.
“It’s affected house prices too, lots of people saying that they’ve had up to £50,000 knocked off the value of their home. Unfortunately, nobody wants to buy our properties if we want to move off somewhere else, there’s absolutely no interest.”
Expressing her outrage at the plans, local MP Dame Caroline Dineage told GB News that the Government has “mishandled the site from square one”.
Local MP Dame Caroline Dineage told GB News that the local people have been through ‘hell’ with the Government
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GB NEWS
Ms Dineage said: “My key concern with the Government was that they communicated properly with local people, and they have absolutely, spectacularly failed to do that.
“The process of redeveloping on the original site has been hellish, nightmarish for people living around this area – noise, dust, disturbance, and a complete lack of interaction.
“We are literally feet from people’s houses. It’s too many on that site, it’s a site that is ill-equipped to deal with it in an area ill-equipped to deal with it. People have already been through hell, and the Government have proven that they can’t communicate this efficiently with local people.”
In a statement, a Home Office spokesman told GB News: “We make no apology for significantly expanding our detention capacity, which will see more than 45,000 additional foreign criminals and illegal migrants removed in the coming decade.”