The Home Office wants to house up to 1,256 single adult men on the former MOD Bicester site in open countryside for ten years.
Residents were given ten days to respond. Cherwell District Council learned hours before the rest of us did. The decision will not even be made in Oxfordshire; instead, it rests with ministers in Whitehall. Nobody in Bicester, Ambrosden, Launton, Blackthorn or Piddington was asked whether their roads, GP surgeries, water supply or emergency services could handle it. They were simply told.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Oxfordshire County Council did something similar three years ago.
What is a "Council of Sanctuary"?
"Council of Sanctuary," is an accreditation awarded by the national campaigning organisation City of Sanctuary UK. It is not a legal duty or a government requirement. It is a badge that a council applies for, which a panel appointed by the campaign assesses and then displays.
To earn it, a council commits to a programme of work supporting asylum seekers and to promoting a "culture of welcome" across all its activities. In practice, that means a public, standing declaration that Oxfordshire is open as a destination.
Oxfordshire County Council resolved to seek that status in a motion passed on 7 November 2023, under its Liberal Democrat leadership. The council announced it with some pride, as the first county council in England to hold it.
There was no referendum. No mandate from the people of Oxfordshire, who were never asked whether they wanted their county to carry that label on their behalf.
Why it must now be revoked
Oxfordshire's councillors are lining up to oppose the MOD Bicester plan, across the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Reform, and independents alike. That cross-party opposition is welcome and right.
You cannot spend two years telling central government that your county is a place of welcome and then be surprised when central government treats it as one. You cannot campaign against 1,256 beds in Bicester on a Monday and advertise the county as a Council of Sanctuary on a Tuesday. Ministers will read the badge, not the press release.
Some will say the accreditation is unconnected to the Home Office's decision. Whether or not it weighed in the balance, the principle is the same one at the heart of this whole affair; decisions of this magnitude were taken about our communities without our communities being asked.
Conservatives in Oxfordshire are proud to support the community-led Wrong Plan. Wrong Site. campaign, which is fighting the MOD Bicester application on the grounds that matter: access and transport, water and power, healthcare and emergency cover, safeguarding, transparency, and clear lines of accountability.
This petition asks the County Council to do the one thing entirely within its own power. It will take only a few minutes to sign.
More you can do help stop the Bicester MOD Site
- Support the Wrong Plan. Wrong Site Campaign.
- Respond to the government’s consultation by the 17th of September.