Green light for Piddington!

13:37Cossy

Peacelilydilly

Get the violins out and the halos while we're at it smile

What a vile comment.

I pray neither you nor your family ever finds themselves in some of the situations some citizens of our world have had to manage.

.....
Give over what waiting in France having passed through numerous safe countries and paying thousands of Euros to the smuggling gangs to cross over to the land of benefits.

And the government response:

“Luke Pollard, a defence minister, said the government would continue to engage with the community. He told LBC: “It’s pretty obvious that there’s a strong sense of feeling from the community around Bicester, especially in Piddington. The Home Office continues to engage with those. There’s still a few more stages to go here, so it’s not yet fully locked in and delivered, so that we can understand where the concerns are, so they can be mitigated.”

A Home Office spokesperson said a final decision to proceed had yet to be taken. “The government is working on a fairer distribution of asylum accommodation across the country, with over £1bn saved in costs since the election. This includes closing all asylum hotels and moving to alternative accommodation, including former military sites. These are designed to be self-contained, with 24/7 security and CCTV, to minimise the impact on the local community.”

Think Reform UK have talked of building "detention centres" to house AS whilst their claims are being processed. Size and locations not yet designated. If new would be more expensive than MOD premises conversions.

Peacelilydilly

Get the violins out and the halos while we're at it

What a vile comment.

I pray neither you nor your family ever finds themselves in some of the situations some citizens of our world have had to manage.

Agree Casdon and Basgetti.

Here we go- reported in the past hour: “Row breaks out between Tories and Reform. A news conference in Piddington has descended into a shouting match between Reform’s Zia Yusuf and the Conservative’s Chris Philp.

The two men, who are both home affairs spokespeople for their respective parties, appeared alongside Piddington parish council leader Tim McNally at a media event designed to outline local opposition to government plans to for a local accommodation site for asylum seekers.

But the united front did not last long and soon ended up with the pair bickering in front of the cameras. Yusuf asked Philp:
Would you like to actually apologise for the things that you did in government to bring hundreds of thousands of people into this country illegally? Are you going to take the opportunity to apologise to the people of Piddington and to the country?

Philp responded by saying that the residents of the military base would be asylum seekers who had arrived recently. He said that “rather than engaging in point scoring”, Yusuf should “read the room”. However, Yusuf said the Tories failed to “secure our borders” during their 14 years of government”.

Point scoring between parties- twas ever thus.

Get the violins out and the halos while we're at it

Casdon

It’s no surprise to me at all. It’s the cheapest option, the accommodation was already there, and if you live near a military base (I do too) you already know that the use of it is something you have absolutely no say about.

This.

People are not happy when they are in hotels, not happy with HMOs, not happy with them disappearing off into the community. They have to go somewhere 🤷‍♀️
(Two hotels in our small city, never heard of any problems.)

Graphite

^The cost is staggering.^

Staggering? Are you sure? It’s peanuts. Less than 0.0002% of total government spending.

Asylum hotels were costing £3 billion a year.

Exactly!

Put them in hotels, people moan, put them in other places which require money spent on them, people moan, allow them to stay, people moan, deport them, people deny this even happens.

I’m well aware some of you would would absolutely love to see many national and international laws broken and simply push or tow the boats back across the channel.

The issue here is not Asylum Seekers, it’s corrupt governments and leaders like Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, regimes like Iran, and many other countries.

Of course we are not the only country having issues and headaches with these people, very recently another boat sank crossing to the Senegal. Many drowned were women and their children.

As of November 2026, more than 118.2 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced due to war, violence, persecution, human rights violations, and governance collapses.

Because major humanitarian agencies publish consolidated global data semi-annually, this total reflects the latest official mid-2026 assessment from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

Roughly 1 in every 70 people on Earth has been forced to flee their home.

Maybe be appreciative of your own safety, simply through an accident of birth.

Where’s your humanity? Shame on you 😰😥

There is room and a place in this world of ours to look after every single human being, we receive a very small proportion in the great scheme of things, and accept even fewer.

Of course we need to look after our own citizens as well, it’s not actually an “either” “or” situation. We, and the rest of the world, can actually do both, and between us all we can afford it.

1 in every 70 people! That’s massive!

I absolutely do not wish to renounce my ECHR rights thank you.

Any anti immigrant rhetoric is separate to the use of Bicester MOD premises, which in all available options to house AS whilst their claims are being processed appears to be the cheapest most pragmatic option to date.

No it's not a surprise. As expected the government is getting with progressing this MOD conversions as planned and as transparently communicated. The clear aim is to reduce the use, costs and associated risk of using hotels and HMOs. Those are even more unpopular to local residents in urban areas and the costs bemoaned by UK tax payers. The government listened and the decision to use of MOD premises was the response.

MOD premises use is much safer as self contained, more secure and reduces the costs and risks of arson attacks, riots and damage, repair, compensation claims and policing in urban areas.

AS arrival figures are down, processing times have been lowered and this trajectory may continue. The costs of MOD premises conversion are a capital investment for short, medium and long term use.

Piddington NIMBY residents have now voted to be independent of the UK. That's fine but the Bicester MOD premises are part of the UK and UK owned premises have been designated by the UK government for AS housing.

Piddington has 6 weeks I understand to appeal the UK government decision- time will tell if successful. .

These threads sicken me...

don’t read them then.

The cost is staggering.

Staggering? Are you sure? It’s peanuts. Less than 0.0002% of total government spending.

Asylum hotels were costing £3 billion a year.

MaizieD

Perhaps we should put them in hotels after all if we can't gun them down on the beaches when they arrive.

These threads sicken me...

Me too MaizieD, such vile rhetoric, such hate, towards other human beings, many of whom will never commit crimes and most people on here will never meet nor be in any way affected by Asylum Seekers.

Of course we don’t want criminals coming here, but they come everyday and the majority of them come via regular means, and many criminals were born here, and are white British.

It does seem a lot, but once the work is done will continue to accommodate very many asylum seekers, more cost effective than hotels.

Tworedroses

The estimated cost to convert and upgrade the former military site (MoD Bicester) near Piddington, Oxfordshire, into an asylum accommodation facility is £250 million (with estimates scaling up to approximately £269.7 million when adjusted for inflation). Additionally, the Home Office has awarded a £3.4 million contract to design the site.

This is the cost of converting this Piddington site. Utterly unbelievable.

I had to read your post twice.
The cost is staggering and they wonder why migrants want to come here.
More borrowing, I suppose to cover the cost. I despair at the Britain my GC and their children will inherit.

Kandinsky

Good!
They came across as massive NIMBY’s

😄Agreed

The ECHR protects you and me too. Why would you want to lose that protection?

Absolutely right, Maybee.

Have you seen this, starring the late, great Patrick Stewart?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA

Good!
They came across as massive NIMBY’s

Look, the asylum seekers have to go somewhere while their claims are being assessed and it’s a better option to use MOD places than hotels or even private rentals or social housing.

MaizieD is using sarcasm.

MaizieD

Perhaps we should put them in hotels after all if we can't gun them down on the beaches when they arrive.

These threads sicken me...

Here we go again. It sickens me too MaizieD. Same old people lighting the touchpaper then off they go to dust their chandeliers.

The people of Piddington are not poor … and that’s part of the issue isn’t it? The wealthy middle-classes don’t want asylum seekers anywhere near them.

This was all discussed at great length here with facts and figures to dispel all the misinformation

www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1361703-Principality-of-Piddington

This MoD Bicester site was long going to be a processing centre. Plans were already underway when the Tories shelved it as part of their austerity drive in 2010 saying: The government deemed the facility "unaffordable under current plans”

Under current plans. That doesn't mean forever.

Anyone who was living in Piddington before 2010 will know about this. Anyone who has bought a house there since should have done their homework or had their solicitors do it.

Now that people don’t want hotels or HMOs used to provide supported housing (and mount disruptive and sometimes violent protests outside), this is the only safe and supervised alternative while claims are processed.

I live not far from one of the existing two former military barracks which house asylum seekers. It isn’t a problem. Reform would like people to think it is but it isn’t.

maiseyD your remark has sickened me
gun them down on the beaches what the feff do you mean by that ?

Sago

It’s not a huge surprise, the government has pulled out all the stops to get this underway.

If only they could put the same energy in to more deportations or getting us out of the ECHR.

I feel for the poor people of Piddington.

The ECHR protects you and me too. Why would you want to lose that protection?

Asylum seekers will either be accommodated on existing MoD land or in hotels, existing and purpose built accommodation in suburban areas. Personally I think MoD accommodation is the best option. Upgrades won’t be wasted public money, it will be an investment in the future of the sites, many of which have been allowed to become extremely run down.

We cannot stop people seeking asylum coming to the UK, whatever political rhetoric people would prefer to believe, and something had to be done.

Perhaps we should put them in hotels after all if we can't gun them down on the beaches when they arrive.

These threads sicken me...

If it's the cheapest option then it should go ahead. Nobody wants this but it has to be dealt with and some people will be unhappy.
It isn't fair to send asylum seekers to the same towns where there are already many staying there.