Legal challenges over accommodation of asylum seekers at airfields rack up as council decides to appeal injunction refusal and resident launches judicial review

The Home Office is now facing two separate legal challenges over its plans to accommodate asylum seekers on Wethersfield Airfield after Braintree District Council confirmed it will appeal the High Court's refusal of its injunction application a day after a local resident announced they had issued judicial review proceedings.

Braintree announced its decision to appeal today (28 April), while Gabriel Clarke-Holland, who has lived opposite the main entrance to the airfield since he was one, launched his judicial review challenge yesterday.

Braintree first contested the Home Office's reliance on permitted development rights (Class Q) to avoid the need for planning permission at an injunction hearing on Wednesday (19 April).

Class Q is set out in The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 and allows the Government to develop Crown land in the event of an emergency.

Waksman J concluded that the court did not have the jurisdiction to rule on the issue but granted Braintree leave to take its challenge to the Court of Appeal.

In an obiter passage, Waksman J indicated that the circumstances had met the requirements of Class Q, according to Landmark Chambers.

But in its statement today, Braintree said it remains of the view that the Home Office cannot rely on the use of permitted development rights (Class Q) as a way of getting around the need for planning permission.

It added: "We will be preparing our appeal papers and will be lodging these within the next week. We'll then await notification of when the appeal will be heard by the Court of Appeal and keep residents updated."

Clarke-Holland, meanwhile, will also challenge the Home Office's lack of public planning consultation.

However, his judicial review application also disputes the lawfulness of a screening direction given by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, which stated the Home Office plan is "not likely to have significant effects on the environment".

The letter also directed that the proposed development was not 'EIA development' within the meaning of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017.

Clarke-Holland's claim alleges that the direction appears not to have given adequate consideration to issues such as the consequences of ground contamination present at the site, the impact on local water networks, the impact on the narrow local road network or on the mental health of the local residents.

He is funding his claim via the crowdfunding platform Crowd Justice and has raised more than £16,000.

Sue Willman of Deighton Pierce Glynn Solicitors (DPG Solicitors), who is representing the claimant, said: "The Home Office is failing to meet its legal duty to promptly process asylum-claims resulting in a massive backlog of people in unsuitable housing."

Willman added: "We disagree that the cost of this is 'an emergency' which justifies bypassing normal planning laws at the expense of local residents and asylum-seekers. Once again, the Government is showing a disdain for basic legal rules which are designed to protect us all."

DPG Solicitors are instructing Alex Goodman KC and Charles Bishop from Landmark Chambers.

Wethersfield Airfield is one of three disused sites that the Home Office plans to move asylum seekers into in an effort to move away from its policy of using hotel accommodation, estimated to cost £6m per day.

The Home Office faces a separate judicial review challenge from West Lindsey District Council over plans to accommodate asylum seekers at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire.

Rother District Council – in whose area the Home Office's third site, Northeye Prison, is located – said this week that it was also "currently considering all options, including legal options”. It added that it has taken legal advice on Mr Justice Waksman’s ruling.

Adam Carey