An immigration removal centre (IRC) in Oxfordshire is to be renovated and reopened according to new government plans.
The site was originally shut down in 2018 after years of riots, escapes and complaints about conditions. In 2022, the Home Office announced that the site would be reopened after undergoing refurbishment, which was solidified in 2024 when the construction company Galliford Try announced it had won the contract to renovate it.
According to the UK government’s document, the renovation plan includes ‘a mixture of refurbished and new-build accommodation built to the latest standards.’ This plan will be executed in two phases. The first phase will refurbish the existing buildings, creating around 160 bed spaces, compared to 282 in the former IRC. The second phase consists of the construction of new accommodation, which will expand the maximum capacity to up to 400 beds total.
The UK government says the IRC will function to ‘hold a mixture of time-served foreign national offenders and immigration offenders while we prepare to remove them from the UK’.
Most bedrooms will be dual occupancy and any provision of recreational, educational, healthcare, living and faith-related facilities for detained individuals will be entirely contained onsite.
These renovation plans were met with public backlash from parliament members, councils, and demonstrators. An Oxford Mail article reported on the response to the announcement of renovation plans in 2024, saying ‘MPs and councils have strongly opposed the reopening of the site, and a campaign group titled ‘Keep Campsfield Closed’ was formed.’
Those in opposition of the IRC’s reopening, like ‘Keep Campsfield Closed,’ value Oxford’s status as a City of Sanctuary. On their website, they condemn the reopening, considering it a ‘significant betrayal by a government which committed in 2016 to reducing the number of people in immigration detention’.
The site will be secure, meaning that detained men ‘will be held under immigration powers and will not be free to leave the centre or access the local area’.
Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, said last year that reopening Campsfield would help ‘boost our border security and ensure the rules are respected and enforced’.
