Government urged to put ‘clear distance between it and the cruel, wasteful camps policy held by the previous one’
THE HOME OFFICE failed to rule out housing asylum-seekers in an asbestos-filled former prison today after the government’s spending watchdog blasted the Tories for wasting £15 million on it.
Tory ministers Robert Jenrick and Oliver Dowden “cut corners” and made “poor decisions” when they paid for the Northeye site in East Sussex, a damning National Audit Office (NAO) report said.
The “rushed and misjudged” decision was made despite the “technical due diligence and approvals process not having been undertaken.”
Shadow justice secretary Mr Jenrick announced that Northeye would be developed to house 1,200 people a month after an environmental review had identified a contamination risk from “asbestos-containing materials in existing buildings and contaminated ground” in February 2023.
The diligence report also estimated the cost of repairs to buildings at the site to be £20m.
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Jeff Newnham, who leads the Save Northeye campaign against the development, told the Star that the asbestos-contamination risks were widely known following a fire at the former prison in the 1980s.
Labour said the report “raises serious questions about [new Tory leader] Kemi Badenoch’s judgement to appoint someone to her shadow cabinet who has no regard for public money.”
But the Home Office declined to rule-out housing asylum-seekers at the site themselves when asked by the Morning Star today.
The department has not finalised its plans for Northeye but insisted that it “will always act in the best interests of the taxpayer.”
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