A reported Home Office error over protected crested newts could derail plans for a proposed asylum accommodation site near the Oxfordshire village of Piddington, whose residents have voted symbolically to leave the UK.
Documents obtained by opponents of the scheme to house more than 1,000 male asylum seekers at a former military facility near Piddington indicate that several protected wildlife species are present on or beside the site.
The records appear to conflict with an ecological survey commissioned by the Home Office and submitted with its planning application. That assessment reportedly found no evidence of protected newts, bats or reptiles that would prevent the temporary camp from being developed.
Village campaigners say the discrepancy could provide grounds for a legal challenge and potentially stop the accommodation centre from opening. They argue the Home Office would first need to update its assessment and introduce safeguards, including creating a replacement habitat for any newts found at the site.
The alleged error was identified by Piddington resident Claire Brenner and is expected to form part of a High Court challenge against the proposed development, launched on Wednesday.
Ms Brenner said carrying out work at the site without the necessary protections could potentially amount to “a wildlife crime”.
A reported Home Office error could threaten plans for an asylum accommodation site near Piddington
Documents indicate that several protected wildlife species are present on or near the former military base (Pictured: A group of people believed to be migrants carrying their belongings at Crowborough Training Camp)
“If the Secretary of State determines this application on the basis of materially incomplete information, that is open to legal challenge,” Ms Brenner told The Telegraph.
“If they proceed with work on the site without a licence, then potentially it’s a wildlife crime.”
The claims emerged just hours after Piddington residents voted by a large majority to declare independence from Britain.
On Wednesday morning, the village parish council announced the result after residents went to the polls the previous day to decide whether Piddington should symbolically secede from the UK.
Turnout reached 92 per cent, with 285 of the 312 voters supporting independence. Only 26 voted against, while one ballot paper was spoiled.
The result has no legal effect and will not remove Piddington from the UK. However, campaigners hope the protest will send a message to Westminster about plans to provide asylum accommodation at the former Ministry of Defence site in Bicester.
The Home Office is seeking permission to use the former Bicester Garrison temporarily, with plans for accommodation, healthcare and welfare facilities, access roads, security infrastructure and recreational space for up to 1,256 people.
The Oxfordshire village of Piddington celebrates voting in favour of independence today
Parish council chairman Tim McNally told residents today that it was an ‘incredible day’
An aerial view of Piddington today after villagers voted to become an independent state
Parish council chairman Tim McNally said today it was an ‘incredible day’.
He said: ‘Yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of Britain and for us it was the Battle for Britain. We’d been identified as Ground Zero for a whole number of issues.’
Mr McNally spoke in front of a pennant reading ‘Battle for Britain 2026’ outside the village hall, alongside another marking the date of the Battle of Britain – September 15, 1940.
Addressing politicians including Prime Minister Andy Burnham, he added: ‘This is an example of democracy in action. This is an example of a mandate of behaviour.
‘I didn’t realise what I was opening up and getting involved in. I just thought we were going to be opposing a plan. A plan that would have an impact on our village, that could turn our village upside down in a way not quite envisaged before.’
He described residents as ‘underdogs’ with a ‘plucky idea’, but said: ‘We have given an absolute message, not just to the region, not just to the country but to the world.’
Mr Burnham said today that he understands the public’s ‘strength of feeling’ about migration following the vote.
But Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said that the Government would not reconsider the migrant housing proposal and the burden of hosting asylum accommodation should not just fall on ‘poorer communities’.
She told Sky News: ‘What I would just gently say to the people of Piddington is: we inherited a massive asylum backlog. We are getting that backlog down.
‘We’re speeding up the processing of claims, and in the meantime, we don’t think it’s acceptable for all of the burden of shouldering not just asylum accommodation, but also many other forms of temporary accommodation, to fall on poorer communities.
‘That’s what we saw under the previous government. Because accommodation is cheap in many, not just towns, but in particular postcode areas, people who live in more deprived communities have had to put up with almost … every other house in some instances… turned into HMOs, and that is not OK.’
A protest sign is seen (bottom right) outside Bicester military camp
A protest sign pictured outside the Bicester Ministry of Defence site in Oxfordshire
Meanwhile the leader of Oxfordshire County Council has said housing asylum seekers at the site near Piddington would be ‘a lightning rod to the far-Right’.
Liberal Democrat councillor Tim Bearder told the BBC’s Today programme: ‘Wasting money of tens of millions of pounds on a completely unsuitable site is bad for the taxpayers, it’s bad for the asylum seekers, because a site like this will be a lightning rod – it will be dangerous.
‘I know the Government want to look tough on immigration, they want to put them behind tall fences – partly perhaps for their own protection – but actually I think it will be dangerous because this site will be a lightning rod to the far right, who will come here, will protest, potentially attack these individuals.’
There would also be ‘tension’ among the asylum seekers living in the site ‘which has never housed anybody,’ he added.
‘There’s no water, there’s no electricity to this site, the road outside is dangerous – two people have died in the last three years on that site, which has no footpath.’
The referendum shows the strength of feeling about both the proposal and how Government has handled it ‘without engaging local people and looking at the feasibility of this site’, Mr Bearder also told the programme.
Piddington parish councillor Joe Marshall suggested the village could go as far as electing leaders for the new ‘principality’ and issuing identity cards, after residents voted for independence in a symbolic referendum.
When asked how far the village is prepared to take its ‘independence’ claim, Mr Marshall explained that it will come down to how much the Government is willing to engage with them.
Mr Marshall said: ‘The renaming of the village is one of the things. We’ll probably go through and elect some leaders and all that kind of thing to really hammer it home.
‘I’ve mentioned to people before about the Principality of Sealand, which is off the coast of Norwich somewhere, and they have it where they’ve got their own national teams and they’ve got their own stamp and their own symbolic citizenship card and things like that.
‘We can really play with it, but I think what we would do more than anything is encourage other areas that don’t support what’s going on in their areas to push for similar things.’
The result comes as the Government’s planning application for the site remains under consideration.
The proposed site is now the subject of a formal consultation, with representations due by tomorrow. But the proposed number of asylum seekers would be more than three times the size of Piddington’s population, which is around 350 people.
The scale of the plans prompted the campaign, with residents arguing infrastructure and the local road network are not equipped to deal with the proposed development.
Pensioner Herbert Owen, known locally as Herbie, described the referendum as the ‘Battle of Britain’ after casting his vote.
The 76-year-old said: ‘It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for – today is the Battle of Britain. This isn’t just about Piddington, this is about our whole country. This Government is destabilising our country.
‘Wherever they put these people, in camps, in HMOs (houses in multiple occupation), or whatever, they’re ruining people’s lives.’
Mr Owen said Piddington was a ‘wonderful little village’ and that it had changed little since he moved there 33 years ago.
The referendum result was announced to a crowd of journalists and residents gathered outside Piddington village hall this morning and follows an earlier vote in July in which 96 per cent of those who took part backed holding an independence referendum.
The date of that vote, July 4, was deliberately chosen because it is associated with the American Declaration of Independence.
Residents have since stepped up their campaign against the asylum plans.
Last week, 133 women from Piddington wrote to female MPs warning that their lives could be transformed if the plans went ahead.
The letter said: ‘life as we know it will be destroyed’ if the plans succeed.
‘We will not feel safe walking our streets. We are already living in fear,’ they wrote.
More than 20 women have also reportedly signed up for self-defence classes after residents said they had been advised by police to take precautions.
Melise Witkin, 59, said: ‘This is not about being rich or poor, this is about safety. People have worked really hard throughout their lives to live in this village.
‘It is not such a rich or poor village. I just don’t think that is a conversation to be had. This is about safety.
‘We are 356 people in the village with 46 children and 1,250 men turning up is a recipe for disaster. People walk their dogs, children play, I just think it is madness.
‘This is about safety, nothing more. Even for them [the asylum seekers], along that road there is no pavement, there are no street lights. We just have to be realistic.’
