STOP the Unsafe Housing of 600 Asylum Seekers in Crowborough
STOP the Unsafe Housing of 600 Asylum Seekers in Crowborough
Latest: July 5, 2026
One Final push – We Have Just 1 week to Raise £18,000
Why We Are Taking Legal Action
We need your help to challenge the Home Office’s unsafe and unlawful plan to house over 2,000 male asylum seekers at a military training camp in Ashdown Forest over the coming 12 months — and likely far beyond.
We understand that the Home Office intends to rotate groups of up to 600 men at a time through the Crowborough Army Training Camp, each staying around 70–90 days before being replaced by new arrivals. The crippling impact this will have on the Crowborough community has clearly been blatantly ignored.
Many of these men are likely to be survivors of war, torture, trafficking, and suffer from PTSD. Yet the government plans to place them in a military environment - surrounded by gunfire from nearby police training facilities and public shooting ranges - an environment that could retraumatise the very people it is supposed to protect. The High Court has previously found that accommodating vulnerable people in such sites is unlawful.
We believe that the site is unsafe and unsuitable:
- There is reported acute asbestos contamination throughout the buildings and site, severe damp, and a failing sewerage system that regularly overflows during heavy rain.
- Unexploded grenades and ordnance from WWI and WWII have been found on the site, requiring Expert Police bomb disposal callouts.
- Youth cadets who currently use the site will be displaced, with no alternative location offered.
- Local NHS and emergency services are already overstretched with an already significant impact on the Crowborough and surrounding area communities.
This plan ignores every safeguard in law — and every principle of humanity.
It also goes against what The Home Office claims is a way to “deliver better value for the taxpayer” and reduce the impact on local communities. Accommodation sites factsheet – April 2023 – Home Office in the media
However, the independent National Audit Office (NAO) found that the large-site accommodation programme (which includes former military bases and large barrack-style camps) is in fact expected to cost £46 million more than using hotels over similar periods. Alternative asylum accommodation will cost more than hotels - NAO press release
The NAO also found that large site plans were rated “high risk or undeliverable” and yet the Home Office has apparently failed to consider this in its decision making. Asylum Accommodation and UK-Rwanda partnership - Committee of Public Accounts
The Home Affairs Select Committee also recently found that large sites “generally proved more costly to deliver than hotel accommodation and will not enable the department to drive down costs in the same way as expanding Dispersal Accommodation”. The Committee went on to say that the Home Office “must learn the lessons from its previous mistakes in rushing to deliver short-term solutions that later unravel” but it has seemingly failed to do so.
Our Story
We are Crowborough Shield - a group of residents who came together after discovering, through the media, what the Home Office had planned for our town.
We are parents, grandparents, veterans, volunteers, and local business owners. We care deeply about Crowborough’s people, heritage, and forest, and we refuse to stand by while reckless decisions are made without consultation, assessment, or transparency.
The Crowborough Army Training Camp lies within a legally protected area - a landscape recognised for its rare species and fragile ecology. The forest is home to the Dartford warbler, European nightjar, and great crested newt — all protected under UK and international law. It forms part of a Special Protection Area (SPA), a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC).
Despite this, the Home Office has proceeded as if these protections do not exist.
Our community is united - residents, the Town Council, Wealden District Council, MP Nus Ghani, and even groups representing asylum seekers agree: this site is completely inappropriate and inhumane.
This case is not about politics. It is about law, safety, and decency.
The Legal Challenge
We are seeking to bring a Judicial Review to test whether the Home Office has acted lawfully.
We believe the Home Office has breached multiple legal obligations, including:
- Failing to conduct environmental, safety, and risk assessments.
- Ignoring planning laws and attempting to use emergency powers to bypass them.
- Neglecting the duty to consult residents, local authorities, and statutory agencies.
- Disregarding safeguarding and welfare standards for vulnerable asylum seekers.
- Overlooking environmental protections for Ashdown Forest and its endangered wildlife.
The camp was never designed for human habitation - it was built for training, not living. Retrofitting it will cost millions in taxpayers’ money and still fail to make it safe.
The Home Office’s approach - secrecy, speed, and disregard for due process — sets a dangerous national precedent. If this plan goes unchallenged, any protected rural site could be repurposed next, without scrutiny or accountability.
We intend to make sure that does not happen.
How Much We’re Raising and Why
Our initial target is £25,000, which will fund the first stage of legal action:
- Instructing specialist public law legal team
- Securing expert legal advice and environmental evidence
- Making formal disclosure requests and issuing pre-action correspondence to the Home Office
If the case proceeds to a full Judicial Review, we will raise the target to cover court filing fees and legal representation (King’s Council)
Every contribution - large or small - brings us closer to transparency, accountability, and justice.
Together, we can ensure that the Home Office is held to the same laws it expects the rest of us to obey.
Thank You
Your support means everything.
By standing with us, you are helping protect residents from unsafe policy, the Ashdown forest from irreversible damage and asylum seekers from inhumane treatment.
We believe in fairness, in law, and in doing what’s right — even when those in power do not.
Please donate, share, and stand with Crowborough Shield. Together, we can ensure the Home Office follows the law, protects people, and respects our community.
When power cuts corners, it’s up to ordinary people to draw the line — straight through the middle of the red tape.
Crowborough Shield - Residents Group
July 5, 2026
One Final push – We Have Just 1 week to Raise £18,000
Crowborough Shield - Residents Group
March 2, 2026
Crowborough’s Case Moves Forward. We Are Standing Firm
The Court accepted the Home Secretary’s assertion that no formal decision to use Crowborough Camp had been made until 21 January, just hours before the first occupants were moved in.
To those who have followed every development, every preparatory step, and every pound of public money spent before that date, that position is deeply difficult to reconcile with reality.
However, the Court felt unable at this stage to go behind the Home Secretary’s stated position.
As a result, the claim was deemed premature and could not proceed.
But this is not the end.
Importantly, the judge made clear that the final decision remains open to challenge. He was also careful, in our view, to indicate on several occasions that the issues we raise are serious and capable of merit. That matters.
We now face a strict deadline. The limitation period to restart proceedings expires on Wednesday 4 March. If we are to continue this fight properly, effectively, and with the strength it requires, we must act immediately.
We are profoundly grateful to a generous supporter who has stepped forward and covered the £10,000 Defendant’s costs order. That act of belief and solidarity means more than we can express.
But to move into the next phase, we urgently need further funds.
Although this case is brought in the name of Crowborough, this is about something far wider. The Home Secretary has stated publicly that “Crowborough is just the first” and that she intends to “bring forward site after site.” If that is the direction of travel, then many more communities will face decisions of this scale, made without scrutiny or challenge.
No Home Secretary, of any party, should be able to take decisions with such profound impact on local communities without lawful accountability.
If you believe that government decisions of this magnitude should be open to challenge…
If you believe due process matters…
If you believe communities deserve transparency…
Please support this case.
Your donation does not just fund legal papers. It funds accountability.
Thank you for standing with us.
Crowborough Shield - Residents Group
Jan. 28, 2026
We now have an initial hearing....
We are now at the first stage of the legal case where Mr Justice Mould a senior planning Judge in the Administrative Court has today ordered that our applications for permission to seek judicial review; an order that the Home Secretary give disclosure; an urgent substantive hearing; and cost capping orders shall be heard at an oral hearing on the first available Court date after 16 February 2026.
The Judge noted that the issues that we are raising merit an oral hearing and there is a need for some urgency.
We consider this to be a positive development because the Court has recognised the case should be dealt with at an oral hearing on a short timetable.
We now have 14 days in which to serve our detailed arguments for that hearing and, if they still intend to contest it, the Home Office must serve their own at the same time.
We hope that the Home Office will now drop their pretence that a decision had not been made before last week and finally engage with this matter seriously.
Crowborough Shield - Residents Group
Dec. 11, 2025
Crowborough Shield Launch Legal Challenge to “Secret” Asylum Camp Decision
On 9th December 2025 Crowborough Shield became a Community Interest Company. Becoming a CIC adds substance and permanence to Crowborough Shield, showing our commitment and determination.
The very next day (10th December), utilising the generously donated funds from this Crowd Justice, we proceeded to launch a legal challenge in the High Court against what we consider to be a “secret decision” by the government to redevelop Crowborough Army Training Camp into accommodation for approximately 540 asylum seekers.
Residents are outraged by the lack of transparency surrounding the decision. Despite the site’s transfer to the Home Office, visible construction work, and staff recruitment already underway, the government has declined to disclose how or when a final decision was made, while at the same time suggesting that no formal decision exists.
Crowborough Shield argues that the government has acted unlawfully by advancing the project without planning permission, community consultation, or due consideration of the site’s proximity to the Ashdown Forest Special Protection Area and Special Area of Conservation. Information about the plans has so far emerged only through anonymous media briefings rather than direct communication with the community.
The legal claim contends that the government’s actions breach the community’s common laws rights to justice and procedural fairness. It also invokes Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to a fair hearing. We assert that residents have been denied the opportunity to understand, scrutinise, or challenge the decision-making process. The claim is about the extent to which it is lawful for the state, outside of the national security context, to maintain secrecy in a process of authorising a land use planning decision. The Claim form states “this conduct of the Government Parties is abhorrent to the English constitutional system requiring the rule of law to be observed.”
We remain fully committed to doing everything in our power to overturn this decision and to stand up for Crowborough with the determination our community deserves.
If you are able, please continue to share and support our Crowd Justice page. Each contribution, no matter the size, directly strengthens our legal challenge. As the case moves forward, our legal costs will inevitably rise, and every pound truly makes a difference in keeping this fight alive.
We will continue to keep everyone informed through our Crowborough Shield social media channels as this progresses.
As always - thank you for your continued support
From all at Crowborough Shield
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