Comments on the Home Office plan for 1,256 asylum seekers at MOD Bicester run 7 to 17 September. Its own papers say the ten-year use is designed to last longer.
The public has 11 days to comment on the Home Office plan to house up to 1,256 asylum seekers at the former Ministry of Defence depot outside Bicester. The window opens on Monday 7 September and closes on Thursday 17 September.
Cherwell District Council will not decide the application. The Secretary of State will. That is because on 20 July the government deemed the proposal “Nationally Important and Urgent”, which moves it onto the urgent Crown development route created by the Town and Country Planning (Crown Development) (Urgent Applications) (Procedure) (England) Order 2025.
The application, reference PCU/RARE/C3105/3378843, was published on GOV.UK on 2 September. Comments go to Crowncasework@communities.gov.uk and will not be acknowledged individually.
Where the site actually is
Site A sits within Bicester Garrison, off the B4011 at Launton Road, OX25 1AE. It is not in Bicester. The Home Office’s planning proposal statement puts it about 4.75km from the town, on 10.22 hectares of previously developed land, and roughly 307 metres from HMP Bullingdon. The nearest homes are about 800 metres east, in the village of Piddington.
Cherwell described the location in June as being between Piddington and Upper Arncott.
What is proposed
The application seeks full planning permission for a temporary change of use. The scheme comprises:
- new modular accommodation blocks totalling 14,471 sqm
- the retention and conversion of Building A6, 1,400 sqm
- the demolition of buildings 30, 31, 32, 33 and 81, 15,950 sqm in total
- a wastewater treatment plant of 3,105 sqm and a pumping station of 359 sqm
- health and welfare space, security infrastructure, staff facilities and open space
Total proposed floorspace is 17,935 sqm. The site would run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, providing full board for single adult males aged 18 to 65. No parking is proposed for residents.
The ten years that are not ten years
The application is for a ten-year temporary use. Two of the Home Office’s own documents describe something longer.
The transport assessment states at paragraph 8.1.2 that the proposal is “for temporary use, initially for a period of ten years (facilities are being designed to operate for longer in case use beyond ten years is required)”.
The statement of national importance goes further. It says the site will start as short-stay accommodation, then adds: “Over time however, it is intended that the site will subsequently be expanded for use as a long-term asylum accommodation solution.”
The same document explains why the Home Office did not use permitted development rights under Class Q. That route, it says, “would not align with the need for Bicester to operate as a long term, sustainable component of the asylum accommodation estate, and it would not provide the necessary certainty for permanent infrastructure solutions”.
The statement also confirms a phased build: an initial “minimum viable product” capacity first, then expansion to full capacity.
The urgency case, and the calendar
The Home Office argues the urgent route is needed because a slower one would push delivery into 2027. Its own programme, set out in the statement of national importance, assumed the application would be submitted in July and approved “by late August 2026”.
The paperwork did not keep to that. The application form was signed on 25 June and the covering letter is dated 6 July. The application was not validated until 2 September, and a decision cannot follow until representations close on 17 September at the earliest.
What the documents do not tell you
The published planning proposal statement is redacted in places. The figures for how much traffic the site would add to the B4011, and the number of car parking spaces, are blanked out of it.
They survive in the transport assessment, which is not redacted. That document gives 139 standard and eight accessible car parking spaces for staff and visitors, plus seven cycle spaces. The county’s standard for this type of use is one cycle space per 20 staff, which puts the expected staff headcount at around 140.
The transport assessment models the site on RAF Wethersfield in Essex, a former airbase used by the Home Office for a maximum of 1,245 single adult men, which began receiving residents in July 2023.
The Secretary of State has also directed that some material is “sensitive” under section 293B(11) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and is not being disclosed at all. Separately, on 26 August she directed that the scheme is not “EIA development”, so no environmental impact assessment is required, having concluded it is “not likely to have significant effects on the environment”.
What the councils have said
Cherwell was told of the plan on 26 June. Council leader Cllr Lesley McLean called it “another arbitrary decision from the Home Office, taken yet again, without any consultation”. The council said it could not stop the decision.
On 29 July it wrote to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister asking for genuine consultation, clarity on the urgent Crown route, and funding for policing, healthcare and transport. It warned then that the route “could restrict response timeframes and limit standard public engagement requirements”. The 11-day window is what that turned into.
Bicester Town Council published its own timeline. It sent a formal request for information on 14 July, added councillors’ concerns on 27 July, saw its 1 August deadline pass with no reply, sent an escalation letter on 3 August, and finally received a Home Office response on 24 August.
What it means for you
If you want to comment, the practical points are these.
- Email Crowncasework@communities.gov.uk between 7 and 17 September. Nothing sent outside those dates is guaranteed to count.
- Only material planning considerations will be weighed. The published notice says representations are taken into account “insofar as they raise material planning considerations relevant to the proposed development”. Traffic, drainage, noise, landscape and infrastructure capacity are planning matters. Immigration policy is not one the Secretary of State can decide through this application.
- Representations are not acknowledged individually. A summary of the issues raised, or redacted copies of the representations themselves, may be published later.
- The full document set is on the GOV.UK page. It is also due to be available to inspect at the council offices at 39 Castle Quay, Banbury, OX16 5FD.
- You can also send comments to Cherwell District Council, which is required to forward any representations it receives to the Crown casework team.
We will report the decision when it is issued. For other applications in the district, see our Banbury planning news page.
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