Formal planning objection by Positive Action in Housing to the Erection of Aurora short term immigration holding facility

The apparent good news of the Dungavel closure however simply buried the bad news -  a plan to build a short term holding centre at Glasgow airport.

Our campaign to block the proposal  generated hundreds of objections to the Renfrewshire Council. Planning officers had recommended that the application be granted with conditions but members of the council’s planning and property policy board unanimously refused permission.

 

Sent by email to: dc@renfrewshire.gov.uk

Development Management

Customer Service Centre, Renfrewshire House

Cotton Street, Paisley PA1 1AN

Dear Sir/Madam,

PLANNING APPLICATION REFERENCE: 16/0655/PP

Full Planning Permission

Erection of part single storey, part two storey immigration holding facility (Class 8) with associated access, hard standing, fence, gate and landscaping

Former Clansman Club, Abbotsinch Road, Paisley
Positive Action in Housing is an independent refugee and migrant homelessness and human rights charity. We work with individuals and families to rebuild lives. We assist those seeking refuge to overcome crisis situations, for example, the removal of their basic human rights such as liberty, refuge, shelter and the right to work. By empowering people with information, we help individuals to make the right decisions about their future. Through casework, we challenge unfair decisions. We offer welfare advice and money skills. We offer advice, crisis grants and shelter to those at risk of destitution. We lead human rights campaigns, most recently concerning the refugee crisis. We persistently challenge anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment. We believe in a society where everyone has the right to live safe and dignified lives, free from poverty, homelessness or discrimination. We object to the above application on the following grounds:

Procedural

1. The application form has not yet been posted on the Council’s website. This should be done immediately, so that the applicant and landowner can be identified, and the period for representations thereafter extended to allow people the proper time to submit comments on the application. At present, according to the information available on the planning portal the applicant is given implausibly as “Tim” without any surname (but see ground 10 below). It has also not been possible to view any of the 25 or so submitted comments so far and the statutory consultees are not identified.

Rebuttal of arguments in Planning Statement

2. According to the submitted Planning Statement (5.2, 5.3 onwards), the development plan includes the strategic development plan, the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Strategic Development Plan (May 2012). This identifies the Airport as a “strategic economic investment location for business and financial services, distribution and logistics, life sciences or green technologies” (5.5 of Statement). An immigration holding facility falls into none of these categories, not unless one entertains the repellent notion that detainees are mere freight for logistical distribution.

3. That the applicant or their agents may nevertheless be thinking along such repugnant lines is indicated at the end of the same paragraph of the Planning Statement with its reference to a “strategic freight transport hub”. Again, unless the detainees are regarded as freight, this is irrelevant to determination of this application.

4. Moving on to consideration of the Renfrewshire Local Development Plan (28 August 2014), the Planning Statement notes (5.8) that the site lies within an area identified as Glasgow Airport operational land where Policy E5 – Glasgow Airport Operational Land applies and quotes this policy in full (5.9). While the policy may state there could be “a presumption in favour of uses associated with the operational functions of the airport, or uses which are compatible and do not compromise the airport functionality; this includes land required to      improve surface access arrangements”, it is clear from the Airport Master Plan, that this particular site was not identified for this or any purpose by the Airport Operator as recently as 2011 (noted at paragraph 5.18 of the Statement) as their own Master Plan of that date does not include it. The site has nothing to do with the Airport’s operational functions.

5. At paragraph 5.14 of the Planning Statement, paragraph 93 of Scottish Planning Policy 2014 is quoted to justify the proposed development because they claim it will provide “around 60 new permanent jobs (full time equivalent)”. No evidence is provided for this figure, nor whether the contractual arrangements are such as would satisfy the Council, nor whether local people would want to work under these conditions in such a dubious facility.

6. After the unexceptionable assertion that economic development at the Airport is broadly supported by regional and local policies (6.2), the applicant’s agent then immediately quotes (6.3) a single example of a recommendation to approve an immigration removal centre at Gatwick in 2006 (but see ground 10). This refers to an ‘on airport’ facility, whereas the application site here is not even included by the Airport Operator within their 2011 Master Plan.

7. In the same paragraph 6.3, the applicant’s agent concedes that the site is privately owned and accessed from the public highway. Although visibility along Abbotsinch Road is said to be good (6.12), it is difficult to see how vehicular access can be arranged without adversely affecting other traffic on the road, as these will be security entrances with drivers’ and passengers’ identities having to be individually verified.

8. The applicant’s agents themselves seem rather coy about the visual aspect of the proposed facility, describing it as being “set well within the site such that it will not be prominent within the street scene and will be visually perceived as a further commercial building” (6.7). It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are intent on hiding the building’s unsavoury purpose.

9. The Planning Statement concludes (7.1) “other local authorities with major airports have similar airport related development plan policies and have previously considered immigration removal centres to be appropriate development within airports”. The plurals (authorities, airports) suggest airports with such facilities are widespread but the Planning Statement in fact quotes only a single example at Gatwick and none in Scotland.

Background information

10. Note that a 2010 application by essentially the same applicant (Arora Hotels per Tim Jurdon) to convert a hotel into an immigration detention centre was refused:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8480286.stm

http://london.noborders.org.uk/news/press-release-immigration-centre-planning-permission-refused.

Furthermore, the local Police objected to that application because another two detention centres managed by the same applicant were less than useful to them and contrary to local authority sustainability policy.

Human Rights

 11. Planning law cannot be entirely separated from Human Rights legislation. Challenges so far to planning decisions have most often relied upon Articles 6 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (broadly speaking: fair trial and privacy) and have come from objectors affected by consents. Here we should be considering, before the application is determined, the human rights, such as under Article 3 (inhuman or degrading treatment) of those unfortunate enough to end up in this facility, if it gets built. The Home Office in Scotland has a very poor record as concerns respect for the human rights of detainees, in particular as regards the detention of children. The criticism they faced over this abominable practice led to its discontinuation at Dungavel in 2010. This proposed development would explicitly (Planning Statement 4.1: “families”) reinstate the disgraceful, inhuman practice of incarcerating children who have committed no crime, the vulnerable and the disabled (Planning Statement 4.1), with the well-documented consequences of self-harming and suicide.

Between 2007 and 2016, 926 individuals were recorded as being at risk of self-harm/attempted suicides in Dungavel and shows an upward trend. In 2004, and 2013, two people committed suicide at Dungavel. (All data was obtained from UKBA under the Freedom of Information Act).  The yearly figures for those in detention and on suicide watch throughout the UK also show an upward trend: 2007 1,517; 2008 1,404; 2009 1,588; 2010 1,467; 2011 1,695; 2013 2,379; 2014 2,335; 2015 2,597; 2016 670 in first quarter.

Unfortunately, there is a general ignorance of the role and function of “short term holding facilities” and “immigration removal centres”.  Their function is not solely, or even largely, that of holding of so-called ‘failed’ asylum seekers prior to removal, it is the ‘administrative detention’ of people within the asylum process and those prior to removal. Each year hundreds of people pass through these facilities that are eventually released back into the community and granted leave to remain in the UK.

In summary, this is no more than a poorly disguised attempt by Arora Hotels/Management Services/Property (masquerading as Grove Developments/Ltd. – compare the client on the submitted drawings by Grove Developments, apparently for themselves, or the Design and Access Statement for a limited company of the same name, with that for the site investigation and soil reports where the consultants were instructed by Arora Management Services, and the Tree Survey client where the client was Arora Property) to gain yet another lucrative Home Office contract by obtaining planning permission from a planning authority Arora may think can be more easily deceived than Crawley Borough Council, in whose area Gatwick Airport lies. All this deception appears to have been undertaken with no regard for the human rights of those to be detained.

According to Council leader, Mark Macmillan, the Council will take cognisance of human rights and other relevant issues and will seek the views of a wide range of stakeholders before consideration of any planning application related to this facility.

The application should be refused as it is not in accordance with the development plan and there are no material considerations which would outweigh departure from the development plan. Moreover, there appears to have been a concerted, albeit clumsy, attempt by the applicant, aided and abetted by others, to conceal their true identity and past history. It would therefore be open to the planning authority to refuse planning permission on that ground alone or take such other appropriate action as they see fit against the applicant and any other parties who had assisted them in providing false or misleading information when making this planning application.

Yours faithfully,

Robina Qureshi

Director

 Positive Action in Housing Ltd

98 West George Street Glasgow G2 1PJ

Tel 0141 353 2220 Fax 0141 353 3882

E: home@paih.org W: www.paih.org

Registered Scottish Charity: SC027577

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