Protesters arrested at East Sussex camp after first of 500 asylum seekers arrive

Three people have been arrested after disorder outside a former military compound in East Sussex which is being used to house asylum seekers.

A protest outside Crowborough Training Camp on Friday was “initially peaceful”, but as a vehicle was leaving the site, three people caused an obstruction, shouted abuse and struck the vehicle, Sussex Police said. Two men, 36 and 54, and a woman, 62, were arrested on suspicion of public order offences in two incidents.

Ch Supt James Collis said he was aware that use of the site had “caused concern within the community”, but a small group had acted in a “threatening and intimidatory manner”.

A grey van with blacked-out windows had arrived at the military facility at 3.30am on Thursday carrying 27 asylum seekers. They were bussed in despite uproar in the community and outrage at the government’s claims over months that no “final decision” had been made about using the camp. The Home Office has now confirmed plans to house at least 500 men at the site, which has new signs for a gym, a health facility and a welfare centre.

“It was quite shocking to reach my age and suddenly realise that this is the way the government works,” said Phil Straker, 69, whose land backs on to the compound of two dozen single-storey, redbrick buildings on a fenced-off plot on the edge of Ashdown Forest.

“Your elected representatives and the civil servants who supposedly work for you can be – to put it politely – so disingenuous. To put it less politely, they tell you outright lies.”

Home Office policy seldom unites people across the political spectrum – particularly when it comes to asylum seekers – but people in Crowborough have found common ground over what they see as deliberate dishonesty. Green Party councillors, the local Tory MP and activist groups have raised nearly £100,000 for a legal challenge to the decision to move the asylum seekers to the site.

Standing in the rain at the gates of the compound, surrounded by TV news crews, independent councillor Andrew Wilson said: “We have been lied to, gaslit and misled. It’s a textbook demonstration of how not to do this if you’re going to engage with a community.”

He called for asylum seekers who arrive in Britain by irregular routes, such as small boats, to be detained on site or in detention centres while their applications are processed.

“They gave the district council four or five hours’ notice before dumping 27 men off at 3.30am,” said Wilson. Supply trucks and contractors have been seen coming and going from the barracks since at least October.

Straker, who used to run a saxophone sales business, said he and his wife Charlotte had had no contact from any authorities, local or national. “Nobody’s told us this is happening. We’ve not had a letter through the door, no number or website we can go to,” he said.

Straker said he had voted Labour for the first time in the last election and would never do so again, but couldn’t bring himself to vote for Reform UK. He had attended protests but said he felt “very uncomfortable” with some of them, particularly “the slightly more rightwing elements”. He added: Nobody else was organised. It does concern me that we will get some more rightwing elements coming into the town, trying to hijack it and dilute the local message.

“At the moment… we are swinging towards increasingly right-wing politics here. We've been pushed there.” The usual fear and paranoia around young men arriving by small boat has not been helped by the government’s choice of language. In a press release issued shortly after local journalists filmed the van arriving, the Home Office described the men as “single adult male illegal migrants”.

Local police and district and county councils were briefed confidentially in September about the plans, which were soon leaked. As rumours swirled in an information vacuum about activity at the site, the local parliamentary candidate for Reform, Mike Barrett, arranged a public meeting. This led to the formation of Crowborough Shield, a community interest company that has raised over £93,000 to seek a judicial review.

“They have treated us with utter contempt,” said Kim Bailey, the director and chair of the group, which she said had hired lawyers in an attempt to call for the judicial review. But the Home Office’s insistence that no “formal decision” had been made meant the legal challenge couldn’t begin and the ministry didn’t have to disclose vital documents.

The Home Office insists that a “go-live” confirmation was only possible after all planning permissions had been completed and local stakeholders consulted.

Crowborough base will be run by Clearsprings Ready Homes, a company that has made its owner Graham King a billionaire through public contracts housing asylum seekers. Clearsprings was in charge of Wethersfield barracks in Essex, where the high court found last year that victims of trafficking and torture had suffered serious declines in mental health, and Napier barracks in Kent, where living conditions prompted a high court case in April. In opposition, Labour had criticised the last government’s policy of housing asylum seekers on military sites.

The local council is run by a Green party and Lib Dem coalition, who formed the first non-Conservative council in Wealden District for about 50 years at the last elections.

Rachel Millward, a deputy leader of the Green party, said: “What’s happening [in Crowborough] is a total erosion of public trust.” She claimed the government’s refusal to confirm the formal decision had been “to avoid legal action”. Calling for safe, legal routes for asylum seekers to apply from abroad, Millward said: “There’s been no attempt from the government to frame this as anything other than a deterrent – it’s a performative and dangerous attempt. Reform have set the agenda.”

She said council meetings had become combative and people who had talked of volunteering to lead activities at the site or teaching English had faced threats. “People started being intimidated and threatened online as soon as they said they would help. They’re worried they might be followed when they leave and harassed.” She also called for mental health support for local children whom she said have been told by their parents that they are not safe to walk to school alone because of the asylum seekers.

As night fell last Thursday, a group of men, women and children stood waving union flags at the entry road to the military facility. Passing cars honked their support. Ben Smith, a local builder, said: “We’ve been coming since day one.The Home Office has just ignored us. We’re not racist by any means. We’re just concerned. I don’t like the fact that people call us racist for having flags. We’re British and we’re proud.” A large-scale protest is planned for today.