The RAF base picked to house 2,000 asylum seekers – in a village of 1,000 people
It was once the home of the Dambusters, then the Red Arrows, and it served as an airfield for fighters in both world wars. Now, RAF Scampton – a former airbase on the flat plains of Lincolnshire that locals boast is “the world’s most famous” – is on the frontline of a battle of a very different kind.
Since September last year, there have been 24-hour protests taking place at gates around the site against the creation of a mass asylum centre, which is yet to be opened but is expected to start receiving immigrants this spring. At one gate, on an unremarkable strip of the A15 north of Lincoln, a makeshift museum dedicated to the Dambusters has been pitched under green tarpaulin, containing a few maps, laminated photos, and memorabilia. It is manned by Carol Farmer, 72, a sombre retiree in a puffer jacket and grey beret studded with RAF and Remembrance pins.
“My uncle was based in Reykjavik in the RAF, a lot of my family are in the Army… I’m very, very passionate about these men, their courage, and their valour, and what they sacrificed,” she says. “This base just has so much history and heritage, including a Roman villa under the runway. They say we’re racists, and we’re not.”
The makeshift museum is a poor imitation, she says, of the aviation heritage centre residents were promised. After the Red Arrows moved to nearby RAF Waddington in October 2022, the council secured ￡300 million of private investment for the regeneration of the site in March. The plans promised a business park, jobs, new homes, investment in space and aviation technology and a heritage centre.
But later that month, the plans were thwarted. The Home Office announced it had earmarked Scampton for a “large-scale” development of asylum accommodation and planned to house 2,000 male asylum seekers on the site. Residents of the village – which has a population of roughly 1,000 people – immediately and furiously opposed it. West Lindsey District Council mounted a legal battle against the scheme that was unsuccessful; it has since announced it will appeal.
Sarah Carter, 48, and her husband, who live on the airbase itself in former military family accommodation along with around 650 others, launched an online campaign. “It was all about history, the heritage, the regeneration, the investment,” she says. “History and heritage” is the party line. “The ￡300 million regeneration [promised] for this area is the biggest Lincolnshire would ever see,” she adds.
But she worries about her safety, too – you can see the portacabins lined up on the ‘apron’ of the airfield from her bedroom window. Concerns have been raised about the lack of local infrastructure to cope with the sudden population influx and the proximity to a primary school that sits within the perimeter of the air base. “They had promised a 2.4m fence [around the asylum camp]… but they’ve just flimsy Harris fencing up,” says Carter. “We don’t think that 2,000 people are going to come here with ill intent. But it only takes half a percent of that to actually make a big impact by causing trouble.”
Established in 1916 as Home Defence Flight Station Brattleby, the site was first used by No 33 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. It was then turned into a training aerodrome for young pilots in biplanes such as Sopwith Camels, Pups and Dolphins. Reopened as RAF Scampton in 1936, No 617 Squadron was established there in the Second World War. It was from Scampton that Wing Commander Guy Gibson led pilots into the most famous mission in the RAF’s history, which became known as the Dambusters raid.
It was previously thought of as a desirable place to live, but several local campaigners bemoan the impact the plans have already had on house prices in the area. Neil Arnold, founder of a Lincoln-based estate agency, says demand in Scampton has “absolutely halted… people are losing thousands of pounds, that is, if they [manage] to sell at all.”
Some of those protesting have stronger anti-migrant views. Camped out by Gate 8, flanked by Union Jack and England flags, a portaloo and a fire in an oil drum, a group of men allege that Scampton residents will become “prisoners in their own homes” if the plans were to go ahead. “How could you tell your 12-year-old to go and play out in the park with 2,000 men walking around?” asks one.
Such large-scale sites are a proposition from a Government desperate for solutions. In January, the asylum backlog stood at 98,599 – slightly larger, in fact, than the backlog Rishi Sunak promised to eradicate in 2022. As of June 2023, more than 50,000 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels, at a cost of ￡8 million per day. Other Government schemes to house those awaiting a decision on their asylum claim have fallen spectacularly flat. Plans to house up to 500 migrants on a barge, the Bibby Stockholm, were first delayed after traces of bacteria found in the water supply, then plunged into deeper controversy after a resident took his own life on board in December.
The Home Office has turned to the use of “large-scale sites” including former Ministry of Defence (MOD) bases such as Scampton – but critics say these harm both local residents and the asylum seekers themselves. A damning report from the human rights charity Helen Bamber Foundation in 2023 called a similar ex-RAF site in Wethersfield, Essex, a “quasi-detention” centre that left residents “ghettoised and traumatised.”
In Scampton, as in Wethersfield, asylum seekers will be initially transferred from Manston detention centre in Kent. The maximum stay is nine months, except where the state is unable to find “suitable onward dispersed accommodation.”
The key issues the report identified in Wethersfield were isolation, a “detention-like setting,” a lack of privacy and facilities – all characteristics Wethersfield shares with Scampton, an exposed airfield on a main road near a small village. “Opened in July 2023, [Wethersfield] has already caused profound and irreparable harm to many residents, harm that only intensifies the longer they are kept there,” the report said. The medical charity Doctors Without Borders – which usually operates in conflict zones such as Gaza and Iraq – made the unprecedented decision to open a clinic there in an attempt to tackle the “severe mental health crisis” taking place inside.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Delivering accommodation on surplus military sites provides more orderly, suitable accommodation for those arriving in small boats while reducing the use of hotels which cost more than ￡8 million a day. We understand the concerns of local communities and are liaising with councils and local services to manage the impact of using these sites on a temporary basis.”
“Scampton will be a non-detained site for asylum seekers. It is incorrect to compare it to an immigration removal centre where individuals are detained.”
Back in Scampton, in mid-September 2023, following the announcement of the camp in March, the Home Office organised an online consultation with residents. Carter, with the strong belief that the Government would move migrants onto the site while the campaigners were distracted by a webinar, pitched a blue four-man tent on the airfield’s perimeter and camped out there for five weeks, sleeping in the tent and only travelling home to shower. Her story was soon picked up by national news outlets, and donations flooded in. She had unanimous local support, including from Sir Edward Leigh, the local MP for Gainsborough, who strongly condemned the Home Office’s plans. Supporters dropped off enough sandwiches, tea, and biscuits to feed an army.
Around the time she launched her campaign, Carter was put in touch with a group of campaigners in Linton-on-Ouse, North Yorkshire, who successfully opposed the creation of asylum accommodation on an RAF airbase in 2022. The Home Office spent ￡3 million on turning the site into accommodation before the plans were scrapped.
They warned her of the far-right figures who would turn up and co-opt the campaign – anti-migrant activists who protest at hotels and asylum accommodation across the country. “It was just a waiting game,” she said. Soon enough, they did. And that’s when the real trouble began.
An eccentric cast of far-Right figures affiliated with Patriotic Alternative (PA) – which is, according to advocacy group Hope Not Hate, Britain’s largest fascist organisation – and its splinter groups set up a rival camp at the main gate to the airfield. They had very different messaging. Banners that said “Save our Scampton” were joined by placards with slogans such as “Refugees are raping here.” In October, police found a suspected petrol bomb outside the gates and made several arrests for aggravated trespass and assault. There were rumours of heavy drinking, drug use and theft.
Eventually, the battle between warring protest groups threatened to eclipse the cause they purport to be fighting for. “They didn’t have Scampton at heart… we ended up being the minority,” says Pauline Fisher, a local campaigner who has been involved since October. “There was an awful lot of infighting and things like that. Money going missing from GoFundMe [campaigns].
“Unfortunately, there have been very few of us who have had the guts to stand up to these people and say, ‘that’s not why we’re here.’ They made it so it wasn’t about Scampton, it was about race. It’s just me, my husband, and a couple of others who have stuck it out,” compared to the “constant” stream of visitors last autumn.
Alienated by the behaviour of the Patriotic Alliance camp, local support waned, and the Home Office has pushed ahead with the plans. Documents suggest the first busload of asylum seekers could arrive from the beginning of April this year. Those remaining at the two main camps are making increasingly frenzied attempts to stop the plans. “I’m angry alright,” says one. “To the point where I don’t give a monkeys now. They could bring a bulldozer – it won’t stop me.”
Only a handful of the original local campaign group remain. “You start getting cut off from the people you need to reach – locals, veterans, those with military history,” says Carter. Her life has been dominated by the fight against the Home Office. A self-employed cake decorator by trade, she has not worked in a year. Her husband remortgaged the house. Her pre-existing heart condition has worsened and she was told she is at high risk of having a stroke.
Blighted by this toxic atmosphere, the fight for Scampton has descended into chaos. “We are paying a hard price for inviting these far-right groups into a local issue for popular support,” one campaigner posted on Facebook, taking umbrage with the fact that some original protestors engaged with the far right groups. “It’s time we distance ourselves… or else our cause will be lost.”
