Scrapped Home Office base planned asylum cells

A scrapped £40.8m scheme to build new offices for civil servants would also have housed people who had failed their immigration application, says a council leader.

During a debate on the decision to abandon the plans, the Labour leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Jane Ashworth, revealed how the proposed building at Smithfield would have been a "bomb-proof" detention facility, with cells for failed asylum seekers.

The plans were scrapped in October, when the government decided to use existing buildings to accommodate 500 Home Office staff in Stoke-on-Trent.

Opposition Conservative councillors condemned the government for scrapping the plans.

Ashworth said the proposed building was so expensive because "it needed to be protected against violent attack".

She added: "Once it was decided by this government that it was not necessary to have those cells outside of the major immigration centres, it was no longer necessary to have such a secure building."

Conservative group leader Dan Jellyman said: "It's a very sad fact that the new Labour government have scrapped that building. Jobs are being taken away, offices closing, buildings not being built."

"As a council, we need to be making it clear to government that this isn't right."

Councillor Faisal Hussain agreed with Jellyman and said scrapping the plans would stop regeneration in the city.

Ashworth defended the government and said the Conservatives were not "giving a full picture".

"The 500 jobs in Home Office are here to stay. That was the deal that was made when there was talk about this 'semi-bomb proof' building, and it's still the deal now," she said.

"There's a lot to be said for repurposing buildings in our city centre, and that is exactly what is happening now."

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