I don’t often write directly about local political issues. When I do, I think it is important to be clear that these are my own personal reflections as an Oxfordshire resident. They do not represent the views of any organisation I lead or support, nor of any of the civic offices I am privileged to hold.
There is something about the debate surrounding the proposed asylum accommodation centre near Bicester that has left me feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Not because I am unsure what I think, but because so many people seem determined to force others into one of two opposing camps.
Question the Government’s proposal and, in some quarters, you are assumed to be standing shoulder to shoulder with those who oppose immigration in almost all its forms. Defend the right of people to seek asylum and others assume you must therefore support every decision the Home Office makes.
I reject both positions.
Over recent days I have watched with genuine sadness as some voices have, quite literally, raised the colours and wrapped themselves in rhetoric that owes more to the politics of fear than to the traditions of decency and fairness that have long characterised this county. Legitimate concerns about a major development have too often become entangled with language that portrays people seeking sanctuary as a threat simply because of who they are or where they have come from.
I want no part in that.
Britain has a long history of offering refuge to people fleeing persecution, conflict and oppression. Oxfordshire has played its part in that story, opening its doors to families escaping war and helping people rebuild lives interrupted by circumstances most of us can scarcely imagine. I hope we never lose that instinct. The right to claim asylum is not simply a legal obligation arising from international treaties; it is a reflection of the kind of country we aspire to be. We should continue to uphold that principle with confidence.
Yet supporting that principle does not require us to abandon critical thought. Nor does it oblige us to endorse every policy that claims to be acting in its name.
The proposal for the former Ministry of Defence site near Bicester is not a modest, short-term adjustment. It is the potential creation of a settlement of around 1,250 people, expected to remain for at least a decade. Whatever one’s views on immigration, that is a significant development by any reasonable measure.
If the Government announced plans to build a new housing estate of that size, a university campus, military accommodation or a major employment site, there would rightly be extensive planning, consultation and engagement with local authorities and communities. Questions would be asked about transport, healthcare, policing, infrastructure, environmental impact and the capacity of local services. Nobody would regard those questions as unreasonable. They are the ordinary disciplines of good government.
Why should the expectation be any different simply because the future residents are asylum seekers?
Indeed, I would argue that the standards should be higher, not lower. The people who may eventually live there are likely to be among the most vulnerable in our society. Many will have fled war or persecution. Many will be carrying trauma. If we genuinely care about their welfare, then we should ask whether concentrating so many people in one location, on a former military site, is really the most humane and effective way to support them while their claims are considered.
The Home Office has explained that the site will be largely self-contained, with security and on-site facilities designed to minimise the impact on surrounding communities. I understand the reasoning. But there is an important difference between being self-sufficient and being isolated. The strongest communities are built through interaction, not separation. People rebuild their lives by becoming part of neighbourhoods, learning English, volunteering, joining sports clubs, attending places of worship, making friends and, where permitted, working. Those opportunities are far harder to create when people are housed in large institutional settings that sit apart from the communities around them.
Nor is this simply about what happens within the perimeter fence. Communities work best when change happens with people rather than to them. Local authorities, the NHS, schools, the voluntary sector, the police and residents themselves all have knowledge that central government does not. Good governance is about drawing on that knowledge, not bypassing it. Consultation is not an inconvenience to be endured; it is how better decisions are made.
None of this is an argument for maintaining the status quo. The current reliance on hotels is expensive, unsatisfactory and widely recognised as unsustainable. Faster asylum decisions are needed. Better accommodation is needed. A system that distinguishes more quickly between those who need protection and those whose claims are unsuccessful is needed. But replacing one imperfect model with another is not necessarily progress.
What concerns me most is not simply the proposal itself, but the increasingly polarised way in which it is being discussed. We seem to have lost the ability to believe that two things can be true at the same time: that Oxfordshire should remain a place of welcome for those fleeing persecution, and that Government should be expected to exercise proper governance when making decisions of this scale.
Those positions are not contradictory. They are inseparable.
Communities deserve to be consulted. Local authorities deserve to be trusted as partners rather than informed after the event. Public services deserve to be properly resourced. Above all, people seeking sanctuary deserve a system that is designed around dignity, integration and hope, rather than administrative convenience.
So I find myself in what increasingly feels like an unfashionable place. I will not stand alongside those who seek to exploit this debate to sow fear, division or prejudice. Equally, I will not quietly accept the creation of what could become a long-term settlement of this scale without the governance, planning, infrastructure and democratic accountability that any comparable development would rightly demand.
That is not an attempt to sit on the fence.
It is, I hope, an attempt to stand on principle.
Compassion and good governance are not competing values. In fact, each depends upon the other. If we fail to plan properly, we fail the communities asked to receive change. If we fail to treat people seeking sanctuary with dignity and humanity, we fail them too.
Surely our ambition should be higher than choosing between those two outcomes. Oxfordshire has always been at its best when it has combined generosity with pragmatism, humanity with common sense, and welcome with responsibility. I hope that, as this debate continues, we can rediscover that tradition and insist on policies that are worthy of it.
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