Demonstrators objecting to Government plans to reopen Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre protested outside a Home Office ‘drop in’ event.

The ‘drop in’ event was held at Kidlington Football Club in Yarnton Lane yesterday afternoon.  

During the event, posters provided an introduction to the Government’s intentions in text and ground plans. Home Office representatives, planning consultants and architects were also available to answer questions.

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Around 20 people demonstrated outside the event and then they held a vigil in memory of the 32 men, women and children who died when their small boat foundered in the Channel a year ago.

The Home Office is expected to submit two planning applications in relation to Campsfield House.

If the planning applications go ahead and the site reopens, it could hold up to 400.

Bill MacKeith from the Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed said: “It was very distressing to see plans to develop a site that should be used for something useful like housing, instead showing a development that if it goes  ahead will cause untold misery for thousands of people, locked up without trial or time limit or proper judicial oversight.

“Immigration detention is not the answer.”

Campsfield House closed in 2018 as part of a Government policy to detain fewer people, for shorter periods, and to trial alternatives to detention.

That policy has been reversed.

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This story was written by Sophie Perry. She joined the team in 2021 as a digital reporter.

You can get in touch with her by emailing: sophie.perry@newsquest.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter @itssophieperry

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