Plans to accommodate hundreds of asylum seekers at a military site in Inverness have been dropped, with campaigners against the proposal describing the move as a “victory for common sense.”
The Home Office had faced strong criticism over what opponents called a “back-of-a-fag-packet” response to mounting pressures in the asylum system, with some residents warning the proposal could undermine the character and safety of what they described as a “quiet and peaceful city.”
Immigration officials are understood to have dropped plans to house around 300 men at Cameron Barracks, several months after the scheme was initially put on hold.
However, the Scottish Government and Highland Council both said on Thursday that they had not yet received formal notification of the decision.
The development follows arguments from the local authority that the Home Office would require a House in Multiple Occupation [HMO] licence before any accommodation plan at the site could go ahead.
Tim Eagle, the Scottish Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands, said people in Inverness would be “relieved” that the Labour government had “finally seen sense and abandoned this misguided plan.”
An anti-immigration protest in Inverness following the announcement that asylum seekers could be housed at Cameron Barracks
Cameron Barracks had been identified by the Government as a potential site to accommodate up to 300 asylum seekers
He claimed Cameron Barracks ‘was entirely the wrong site’ and the addition of hundreds more men in the Highland capital would have impacted on ‘key local services already stretched to breaking point by SNP cuts’.
Mr Eagle said: ‘But instead of listening to local people who currently use the barracks, as well as the Queen’s own Highlanders veterans who were shamefully threatened with eviction, Labour ploughed on regardless, wasting taxpayers’ money on a proposal that was never fit for purpose.
‘That money would have been far better spent supporting our armed forces or strengthening our borders than pursuing a scheme that was always going to collapse.’
Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire Angus MacDonald confirmed he was informed by Labour’s border security and asylum MP Alex Norris that the idea had been ditched.
He added: ‘This is the right outcome, and it is a result of the strength of feeling shown by residents, and by the military families connected to Cameron Barracks who made their concerns heard from the very start.’
Mr MacDonald believed the council’s ‘insistence that the Home Office complies with the HMO requirement’ also ‘undoubtedly played a large role in this decision’.
The plan to use the Inverness barracks – which is just half-a-mile from Raigmore Primary School and a 10 minute walk from the city centre – were unveiled last October following the UK Government’s decision to end the use of hotels to accommodate those awaiting asylum application decisions.
Locals told the Mail at the time they were ‘sacred for what would happen’ to their ‘relatively small community’ with such an influx of people.
Mr MacDonald said: ‘The sense of closing asylum hotels in town centres in the South of England while opening an Inverness asylum barracks similarly poorly located defied logic’.
Max Bannerman, Reform UK’s MSP for the Highlands and Islands said the decision to scrap the plans was ‘a welcome victory for common sense’.
He added: ‘Ordinary working Scots have been clear that decisions of this scale should not be imposed on communities without their consent and it is clear ministers have finally been forced to listen.’
A petition against the plans that was set up in October yesterday had amassed almost 13,000 signatures.
Following a Home Affairs Committee meeting on June 11, Highland Council convener Bill Lobban hit back at accusations the authority was ‘blocking’ the plans, but said the council had yet to receive an application for an HMO license.
He added: ‘We are now nine months on from the announcement from the Home Office of their intention to use the barracks and we are none the wiser when, or even if, this is going ahead.’
Angus MacDonald MP who campaigned against Cameron Barracks being used to house immigrants
Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley Anne Somerville said the UK Government had ‘failed to adequately answer’ repeated questions about the ‘practical suitability’ of the site.
She said reported decision to scrap the plans was ‘in the best interests of the local community and the people who would have been accommodated at the site’.
But she added: ‘Scotland has a long history of welcoming people of all nationalities and faiths, including those seeking refuge and asylum from war and persecution.
‘We will continue to cooperate fully with the UK Government on its plans to accommodate people seeking asylum, but going forward these plans must be practical and proportionate and – critically – be developed in meaningful collaboration with the Scottish Government, the relevant local authority and all relevant partners and stakeholders.’
The Home Office was contacted for comment.
