Concern over 'astounding' asylum military base plans
BBCLocal politicians and charities have said they are "concerned" and "astounded" by government plans to house asylum seekers at a nearby former military base.
Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said the the MoD sites were a "far cry" from asylum hotels and that the system was "being brought back under control".
Hari Reed, from the Oxfordshire-based charity Asylum Welcome, said she was "concerned" by the move.
"They will be distant from the kind of support that they usually need and that will put additional burden on the public services that are there to accommodate them," she said.
This could "potentially lead to friction and community tension as we've seen when it's happened in other places."
The leader of Cherwell District Council Lesley McLean said the plan was "another arbitrary decision from the Home Office, taken yet again, without any consultation with the council, residents or locally elected members."
"It's astounding to think that proposals of this scale are being brought forward by government without communication with the local authority and affected communities," she said.
"I have serious concerns about whether sufficient considerations have taken place to ensure the right support, infrastructure and safeguards will be in place ahead of the proposed opening later this year."
Lib Dem MP Callum Miller voiced his concerns over the plan to use the MoD site in his Bicester and Woodstock constituency on Radio 4's Today programme.
He accused the government of having "no credible plan about how it will manage the site and how it will maintain social cohesion".
"The question we are looking for the answer to is why the government thinks it is possible to put 1,250 asylum seekers into a community when the nearest village numbers 370," he explained.
"I've literally no idea how the government thinks that can be absorbed into the community."
The government stated its intention to increase the number of MoD sites it was using to accommodate asylum seekers last year.
Two former military sites - RAF Wethersfield in Essex, and Crowborough Training Camp in East Sussex - are already being used to house asylum seekers.
Labour has pledged to stop using asylum hotels, a costly form of accommodation that has become a focal point for anti-migrant protests.
As of March this year, 20,885 (21%) asylum seekers were in hotels and 72,768 (75%) were in other accommodation as they awaited decisions.
Earlier this week, it announced that a further 20 hotels had closed to asylum seekers - including the Oxford Witney Hotel.
