Napier Barracks will no longer be used as ‘temporary accommodation’ by the Home Office for single men seeking asylum. The former military barracks will be handed back to the Ministry of Defence in September 2025. 

As noted by the Guardian, this change was quietly revealed in a Home Office document.

Opened as a temporary accommodation site in 2020, in reality, Napier is an isolated, quasi-detention centre, surrounded by an eight foot high fence and watched over by 24 hour security. 

In 2021, a ruling from the High Court found the conditions at the Napier Barracks to be unlawful, however after a period of alleged improvement, residents at the site continued to suffer from overcrowding, lack of privacy, isolation and lack of integration opportunities. Now, it operates on a 90-day limit (meaning residents are there for a maximum of 3 months before being moved on). 

Napier has repeatedly been identified as being below minimum standards for health and safety. For instance, there was a mass Covid outbreak in July 2021 with 197 cases identified. 

It is yet another example of the UK government’s failure to accommodate people seeking asylum in a humane and sensical manner. The closure of Napier follows the closure of Scampton, another former Ministry of Defence site that was closed before it even opened, and the towing away of the Bibby Stockholm prison barge. 

Meanwhile, just this week, three individual claimants have succeeded in a judicial review claiming that they had been unlawfully accommodated at the former RAF base in Wethersfield. The court held that the Home Office had unlawfully breached the Public Sector Equality Duty. 

Instead of urgently closing down Wethersfield, an appalling site of human rights concerns and mental health crises, the Labour government has instead increased its capacity despite numerous campaigns and reports indicating the need for the contrary.

The government’s pattern of housing asylum seekers in remote, unsafe, and prison-like conditions must end. The closure of Napier Barracks, RAF Scampton and the Bibby Stockholm barge prove that resistance works—now we must fight for Wethersfield’s abolition, too.

People seeking asylum must be treated with dignity and respect, not within a system that warehouses them in harmful mass accommodation sites.

We must also give thanks to valiant members of the local community, particularly those who formed and volunteered at Napier Friends, who unfalteringly stood in solidarity with residents at Napier – creating opportunities for growth, learning, recreational activities and community. 

What you can do 

• Contact your MP and demand the immediate closure of Wethersfield Camp.
• Support the organisations providing moral support and medical care to those housed at Wethersfield, including:
  • Humans for Rights Network and Care4Calais who provide support and gathered the crucial evidence used in legal challenges against the camp. 
  • Doctors of the World and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who provide medical care to those housed at the camp.