Home Office to sell RAF Scampton on open market

A former RAF station in Lincolnshire is to be put up for sale on the open market, the Home Office has confirmed.

The RAF Scampton site, near Lincoln, had been earmarked by the previous Conservative government to accommodate migrants, but the plans were scrapped by the Labour administration in September.

West Lindsey District Council previously announced plans to buy the site in a deal which it said would unlock £300m of investment for the area.

However, a government spokesperson said: "We must comply with market regulation of public land, rather than just handing it to the council."

In a statement, the Home Office said the site had run up costs of more than £60m between March 2023 and September 2024.

"We have taken swift action to review and discontinue the use of RAF Scampton as asylum accommodation, in order to save the taxpayer millions in projected site costs.

"The sale of the site is taking place in line with the process for disposing of Crown land," a spokesperson added.

West Lindsey said it was notified in a letter from Dame Angela Eagle MP, minister for border security and asylum.

According to the authority, the letter said that "in parallel to this decision the Home Office is committed to continuing work with West Lindsey to progress their interest in the site".

The council announced its development plan for the site in March 2023, which included proposals to transform the site into a business, aerospace and heritage centre.

Sally Grindrod-Smith, director of planning and regeneration at the authority, said there was "a clear plan to secure the long-term investment this site needs".

"Given the well-documented constraints such as contamination, heritage concerns, planning, and infrastructure challenges, a public-private partnership is the only realistic way forward," she said.

She added that the council's preferred development partner, Scampton Holdings Ltd, remained committed to the project.

Chairman of Scampton Holdings Peter Hewitt said: "This has been going on for a long time and we've faced many ups and downs.

"No sooner were we announced as the preferred bidder, having been through a six- month public tender process, the [previous] government said they were putting migrants on the camp.

"We are just cracking on in a straight line," he told BBC Radio Lincolnshire.

In a post on X, the Conservative MP for Gainsborough, Sir Edward Leigh, who previously supported local residents in opposing the asylum plans, described the move as "madness" when there was a deal ready to go.

"They're just trying to cover their tracks because they wasted £64m and three years trying to house migrants there," he added.

Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.