Inside the asylum centre ‘holiday camp’: A gym, football pitch, snack bar – and 17 minibuses to ferry migrants into towns. Leader of Essex County Council was given access to Wethersfield former RAF base… this is what he found
The leader of Essex County Council, Reform UK's Peter Harris, was given rare access to the Wethersfield Airfield Asylum Accommodation site, a former RAF base in the Essex countryside currently housing 800 male asylum seekers. His account, published as an opinion piece, portrays the facility as well-appointed, featuring a gym, football pitch, sports hall, recreation rooms and free meals, and he argues this contrasts sharply with the financial and social burden placed on local communities and the taxpayer.
During the three-hour visit with deputy council leader Russell Quirk, Harris was barred from taking photographs and did not speak directly with residents. He noted free facilities including 17 daily minibuses ferrying residents to Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester, halal-only meat, prayer rooms stocked mainly with Islamic materials, and a weekly £9.95 incidental allowance per person. He cited a National Audit Office estimate that asylum accommodation contracts will cost taxpayers £15.3 billion over the next decade, and noted the site's capacity is expected to rise from 800 towards 1,245, with a possible surge to 1,700, though he counted fewer than 150 residents present during the tour.
- Essex council leader toured Wethersfield asylum site, calling it well-resourced
- Site houses 800 asylum seekers with free gym, meals, minibuses and allowances
- National Audit Office estimates £15.3bn taxpayer cost over next decade
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Wethersfield is a former RAF base in Essex that the government has been using since 2023 as temporary housing for asylum seekers awaiting decisions on their claims. It is one of several large-scale sites, alongside barges and hotels, that ministers turned to as the number of people arriving in small boats and claiming asylum in the UK rose sharply, putting pressure on the usual accommodation system.
The site's use has been a point of contention almost since it opened, with legal challenges over conditions and repeated criticism from residents and local politicians about its effect on the surrounding area and its cost to the public purse. Reform UK, a party that has taken a hard line on immigration and asylum policy, gained control of Essex County Council in local elections earlier in 2026, and its leader has since taken a close interest in how the site is run.
The broader backdrop is a long-running national debate about how asylum seekers should be housed while their claims are processed, who should pay for it, and how such decisions affect nearby towns. Government spending on asylum accommodation has become a recurring political flashpoint, with successive estimates of its long-term cost feeding into wider arguments about immigration policy.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates of Harris's account argue that taxpayers deserve full transparency about how public money is spent on asylum accommodation, particularly given the scale of the National Audit Office's £15.3 billion decade-long estimate and the strain many working households feel amid their own cost-of-living pressures. They contend that documenting amenities such as gyms, minibuses and dedicated meal provision is a legitimate way of asking whether spending is proportionate and well-targeted, especially as capacity at the site is set to more than double. From this view, elected local representatives have a duty to scrutinise sites in their area and report candidly to constituents, even if the findings prove politically uncomfortable.
The case against
Critics would counter that asylum seekers are legally barred from working and have no choice over their accommodation, so describing standard institutional provision, sports facilities, communal meals, a small weekly allowance as a 'holiday camp' risks distorting a constrained, closely monitored existence into something enviable it is not. They would note that halal food and prayer facilities reflect ordinary religious accommodation rather than special treatment, and that a three-hour supervised visit without photographs or resident interviews offers a limited basis for sweeping conclusions. For them, robust scrutiny of contract costs is legitimate, but framing vulnerable people awaiting decisions as burdensome guests risks fuelling stigma and obscures the human reality behind the policy debate.