At the end of January 2011 London NoBorders received information that the hotel company Arora International [1] has started a second attempt to make money from the Home Office's deportation business. The company plans to use the site of a residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties in Pease Pottage, Crawley, Sussex owned by the Arora Group subsidiary "The Crossroads Childrens (sic) Education Services Ltd.", into an immigration detention facility.

This is a summary of what happened so far:

January 2011 : The plans

At the end of January 2011 London NoBorders received information that the hotel company Arora International [1] has started a second attempt to make money from the Home Office's deportation business. The company plans to use the site of a residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties in Pease Pottage, Crawley, Sussex owned by the Arora Group subsidiary "The Crossroads Childrens (sic) Education Services Ltd.", into an immigration detention facility.

It is the second attempt by Arora Hotels to extend their business into detention following the company's failure to gain planning permission to turn one of their hotels in Crawley into a holding facility for immigrants in 2010. [2] Crawley Forest School has been told to vacant the property by 1 April 2011.

The facility is located in Pease Pottage just outside Crawley, Sussex. According to the letter from consultant firm CGMS Consulting [3] the location would be excellent due to its close proximity to Gatwick airport. Locals were surprised to learn that Arora/CGMS and the UKBA plan to push the whole planning process through within the next few weeks, expecting the facility to be open by 11th May 2011.

The letter makes no secret that the facility is planned to replace the use of Yarl's Wood and nearby Tinsley House detention facilities for holding families and children, and explicitly refers to this fact as an explanation of the need for urgency. The letter also explicitly refers to children inside the holding centre. Not only is the UKBA extending their detention capacity, but the government is also breaking their pledge to end the detention of children.

The letter was sent at the same time as Arora submitted an application for planning permission for a fence around the premises of the school. In fact, the application is to retain a fence that they already built. Interestingly this application makes no mention of a planned change of use at all, though the connection is obvious. Cynically, Arora argues that the fence is for the safety of the school children, despite the fact that the school has already been informed about its closure.

February 2011: UKBA files planning application, but avoids disclosing information

On Thursday 10th February Mid Sussex Council published the planning application made by the UK Border Agency to change a school in Pease Pottage into a detention facility for families and children.

However, together with the planning application form, Mid Sussex Council published a letter from the Home Office asking the council not to publish all application details as it is "sensitive information".

The letter by the UKBA states: "It would be helpful if it could be kept separately from the main Planning Register which the Department of Communities and Local Government has suggested you might establish by means of paragraphs 24 and 25 of the Memorandum to DCLG Circular
02/2006 Crown Application of the Planning acts. Any arrangements adopted should be designed to give the maximum protection possible to this information consistent with authorities' statutory obligations." [4]

The memorandum [5] quoted in the letter refers to "sensitive planning applications" where secrecy is in "national interest". In what way the new Pease Pottage facility will require such secrecy is not disclosed in the UKBA letter.

It is unclear what is sensitive about the planned facility which the UK Border Agency tries to sell as "open accommodation" despite the fact that families will be forced to live there and the right to leave will be withheld, but it can be assumed that those details are about security measures which would make locals alarmed about what in fact will become a prison facility of some kind.

The planning application examined

The planning application for the "change of use" of the school describes the planned facility as accommodation for 8 families, and a staff of 4 UKBA employees plus 22 other staff per shift, three shifts a day for seven days a week. As the accommodation for the families is described as "self-sustained" it must be assumed that those 66 staff members per day are security.

The planning application states that families are not allowed to leave the premises unless especially permitted and under security surveillance.

It strikes as obvious that Arora, CGMS and the UKBA have prepared the procedure carefully and attempted to get through the planning process as fast as possible with minimal publicity.

Breaking yet another pledge

The Government has made a big deal out of their plans to finally end child detention in the UK. However, it seems that their announcment now turns out to be yet another media stunt and the detention of families and children in Tinsley House and Yarl's Wood is being replaced with decentralised detention facilities around the country, Pease Pottage being a test case for both its acceptance and practical implementation.

The fact remains that accommodation which is highly secured and massively guarded is nothing else then detention, whatever fancy name the UKBA uses for it.

Locals getting organised and objecting to the plans

In mid-February about 40 locals from Pease Pottage held a meeting about the plans, also attended by members of London and Brighton NoBorders. Following this meeting, several people attended the Parish Council planning committee meeting a week later and heavily objected to the plans by the UKBA.

During this committee meeting (which does not make the final decision) it became even more obvious that Arora Hotels and the UKBA had long prepared this application and failed to answer questions about what information is held back. As a result of local pressure, the committee
will file 8 objections against the planning application to Mid Sussex council.

The Mid Sussex Council District Planning Meeting which will make the final decision if the plans go ahead meets at 10am on 24th March 2011. London and Brighton NoBorders have called for a demo outside the council's office at 9am.

Barnado's to run play facilities at the centre

On Wednesday 9th March the cself-proclaimed "charity for vulnerable children" Barnado's announced that they will run play facilities at the new centre. See press release here.

[1] www.arorahotels.com
[2] http://london.noborders.org.uk/arora
[3] http://london.noborders.org.uk/sites/default/files/Crawley_Forest_School...
[4] http://pa.midsussex.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?act...
[5] http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/150982.pdf