Ex-RAF station 'wrong' for asylum site - mayor

An ex-RAF station in North Yorkshire is "simply the wrong place" to house more than 1,000 asylum seekers, the area's elected Labour mayor has said.

Earlier this week, Home Office minister Alex Norris told parliament the government was "seriously looking" at using the former RAF Linton-on-Ouse, near York, as an asylum centre.

But York and North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith has said the site, which shut in 2020, should instead be used for a "housing-led redevelopment".

Skaith said: "With a serious shortage of housing across our county, RAF Linton-on-Ouse is one of our biggest opportunities to help meet local need and support economic growth. That has been the case since the site closed."

Meanwhile, Skaith's deputy mayor for policing, Jo Coles, has said the scale of the government's proposal for the site, combined with its location and its "limited infrastructure", raised "serious and legitimate concerns about the impact on policing, emergency services and wider community safety".

In an urgent statement to the Commons on Monday, Norris said no final decision would be taken on plans for Linton-on-Ouse and several other sites "until in each case all necessary arrangements, assessments and approvals are in place and have been properly considered".

Norris told MPs that by providing activities and transport at any sites affected, "we can ensure the lightest local impact possible".

The minister added that the Home Office would not look at RAF Linton-on-Ouse if it did not believe there were "viable answers" to electricity and sewage capacity constraints.

Responding on Wednesday, Skaith said the former RAF station was "simply the wrong place" to accommodate "large numbers" of asylum seekers.

He said he had been "pushing hard" to secure the site for housebuilding since being elected in 2024.

"I will be making it clear to North Yorkshire Council, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence that RAF Linton-on-Ouse should be used to build homes, not house asylum seekers," he said.

"This proposal risks putting the site's future development on hold and further delays the homes, jobs and economic investment that local people have been waiting years to see."

North Yorkshire Council's Conservative leader Carl Les also confirmed he had written to both Skaith and Coles asking for an "urgent meeting" to discuss the concerns of Linton-on-Ouse residents.

In a statement, Les said the authority had "retained legal counsel to advise on options as we progress".

"On behalf of all those raising concerns here, we will press government to reconsider this decision, engage meaningfully with us, with the aim that the Home Office come up with a more suitable solution," Les said.

He added that North Yorkshire councillors and officers were meeting with Home Office officials who had said a decision on the future of the site would be made by the end of the year.

"We will seek to influence that consideration. It should be noted at this point that if they decide to proceed, we understand their plan will require planning permission, but it is unlikely this will be for North Yorkshire Council to determine," Les explained.

A similar Home Office plan for the Linton-on-Ouse site was scrapped in 2022 after public protest and the threat of legal action.

At the time, then Conservative Defence Secretary Ben Wallace "withdrew" an offer to the Home Office for the site to be used.

The Home Office has been contacted for a response to Skaith's and Coles' comments about the plans for the former RAF Linton-on-Ouse site.

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