Petition Update: The Fight for Linton-on-Ouse is Wide Open

Petition Update: The Fight for Linton-on-Ouse is Wide Open!

Yesterday, the Border Security and Asylum Minister (Alex Norris) delivered the Home Office's statement to the House. Thanks to the robust attendance and questioning from Alec Shelbrook MP and Rachel Maskell MP, the outlook is far more positive than we feared.

The takeaway? Everything is still to fight for.

The Home Office is only at the feasibility study stage, and no final decision has been made. In fact, it became quickly apparent that officials haven't actually visited the base recently to see its current state. The site is heavily decommissioned and in a much worse state than it was in 2022—a fact the Home Office is only just waking up to.

📋 Key Updates from the Parliamentary Statement

Just a Feasibility Study: The site is under consideration, but a final decision will only be made after full assessments, arrangements, and approvals are completed.

Severe Infrastructure Blindspots: Only basic initial vetting has occurred. The Minister seemed unaware of the extent of the decommissioning—such as the fact that the drains have been completely concreted in.

Cost is the Critical Factor: The Home Office explicitly noted that cost is a massive hurdle, reminding the House that RAF Scampton was ultimately dropped because it was too expensive to utilise.

The Operational Model: The current designation is for a non-detained site, with plans to lay on transport to disperse residents.

🚨 Call to Action: Lobby Your MP on Technical Grounds

Because the Home Office is heavily weighing costs and feasibility right now, our window to act is today. We need to firmly demonstrate that this site is entirely unsuitable.

Please take five minutes to write to your local MP. To make the biggest impact, we urge you to object using technical, objective arguments rather than emotional ones. The Home Office is looking at spreadsheets and viability; let’s give them the exact data points they need to drop this proposal.

When you write to your MP, please urge them to oppose the proposal on these five specific technical grounds:

5 Core Technical Objections to Raise:

It is Not Cost-Effective: Competing with the sheer financial black hole of reversing years of decommissioning makes this site a poor use of public funds.

Excessive Investment Required: The site lacks basic operational infrastructure. Bringing fundamental utilities like sewage systems and electricity grids up to a usable standard will require astronomical, unjustifiable capital investment.

An Unsustainable Model: Operating a non-detained facility in an isolated rural location—relying entirely on artificially manufactured transport provisions to move people around—is logistically unviable in the long term and a drain on other area resources.

Disproportionate to the Local Population: The scale of the proposed facility is entirely out of scale with Linton-on-Ouse, threatening to completely overwhelm local amenities, volunteer services, and infrastructure.

Contradicts Existing Home Office Policy: This proposal flies in the face of established Home Office Asylum Policy guidelines, which prioritize placing facilities in areas with ready, established access to legal, medical, and community support frameworks.

✉️ How to Send Your Letter

Find your MP's contact details via WriteToThem.com.

Copy the technical points above, but put them into your own words where possible (templated letters are often filtered out).

Mention that as a constituent, you expect them to echo the pushback already started by Alec Shelbrooke and Rachel Maskell.

Thanks for your continued and sustained support. Keep the pressure on. This is a long game approach - constant and sustained pressure to MPs and media.