MOD Bicester

And it's considering emulating the Oxfordshire village of Piddington.

We know there's a lot of anger in Piddington because the Home Office wants to put 1,200 migrants in MOD Bicester.

MOD Bicester.

I finally figured out how to pronounce Bicester.

B-I-C-E-S-T-E-R.

Well, those who've followed the story will know well that this symbolic referendum is a reflection of the huge frustration that residents in Piddington, but actually across the local area in my constituency, feel that they have not been consulted by the government on a very major proposal.

Um, it's really important to emphasize that whilst the government likes to talk about repurposing military accommodation, the site that we're talking about on MOD Bicester has never had residential accommodation.

It is essentially a depot for, uh, military materiel.

Uh, and the government's own planning application lays bare that there is no water to the site, there is no energy to the site, there are high voltage cables running over the site, and it is simply not an appropriate setting for the asylum seekers who the government are proposing to put there and would have a very detrimental effect on the local community.

This is the tiny Oxfordshire village with 350 people that's about to have its population expanded fourfold with some unwelcome visitors.

[laughs] Um, there are plans afoot to turn the local Bicester Garrison into a center for asylum seekers that will hold around about 1,200, um, solely male single men.

Um, residents are so angry that they've held an independence referendum and have voted overwhelmingly to secede from the United Kingdom.

Now, obviously that's purely symbolic, but it's definitely put their plight on the map, Tom.

Let's move them into military bases.

Is that you have central government having to go over the heads of local representatives, local communities to impose this.

So this repurposing of the Bicester Garrison was done via Crown Powers.

Again, they've got a kind of paltry sort of consultation which they can respond to, but really it's more or less a done deal unless the government decides otherwise.

And that village, P- Piddington?

Uh, yes, that's by, uh, Site A MOD Bicester.

You've got RAF Wethersfield, you've got Linton-on-Ouse, you've got Crowborough.

But at a time-

Yeah.

I- I- it's so interesting, isn't it? Because, look, you know, what you've got there in Piddington is a disused MOD storage, uh, depot, uh, MOD Bicester.

And there's been such a hue and cry about asylum seekers being housed in hotels, and you'll remember the, the furore there was particularly over kind of Epping Forest and the one, the people staying, I think it was at the Bell Hotel, and the protesters there gathered.

And indeed, there was an asylum seeker who was convicted and found guilty of sexual assault, which also kind of magnified this sense of they're all kind of criminals and we've got a lot to be frightened about.