Badenoch calls for prison at Wethersfield
PA MediaA prison should have been built at the former RAF air base at Wethersfield in Essex, Kemi Badenoch said.
The Conservative leader and MP for North West Essex said her party promised to turn it into a prison during the 2019 election and "that should have been built by now".
However, the site, which has housed hundreds of single male asylum seekers since July 2023, was set to be expanded under the Labour government's plans to end the use of asylum hotels and save money.
A government spokesperson said: "No decision has been made on the long-term future of this site."
'Need more prison places'
While the MP visited Carver Barracks, she said: "I know many people in the area did not necessarily want a prison, but the people in the surrounding area of Essex did want one and we have to do the right thing...
"We need more prison places. I stood on a manifesto to deliver that."
PA MediaThe last government produced proposals for two prisons at Wethersfield in 2021, which could have housed 3,430 inmates.
The government at the time said it would create local jobs and help meet demand for prison places.
There was local opposition with campaigners arguing the site was too remote and lacked the road infrastructure for the prisons to be constructed.
The government instead used a special development order to use the former RAF base to house migrants, to reduce the use of hotels.
The Labour government announced plans to build four new prisons by 2031 and increase capacity in jails by 14,000 places; however, Wethersfield was not part of the current prisons programme.
The BBC understood that asylum facilities, such as Wethersfield and another in Huddersfield, were under consideration for expansion.
It came after Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged to stop using taxpayer-funded hotels by 2029 in her Spending Review, saying this would save £1bn. One of the ways the Home Office hoped to achieve this was by moving asylum seekers from hotels into cheaper alternative forms of accommodation.
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