The ongoing work to reopen Haslar Immigration Removal Centre has overcome its latest stumbling block, but Gosport’s council leader has challenged a Home Office official on why the project is taking so long.

Gosport Borough Council’s regulatory board on June 4 green-lit the Home Office’s plans to install an electricity substation, back-up generator and flood defences to power the Haslar Immigration Removal Centre.

Works are ongoing to refurbish the site to bring it up to standard after it closed in 2015, but an unexpected announcement in 2022 revealed it was to be revamped.

The first phase will see 130 beds created in the refurbished accommodation, with a second phase to follow, creating an additional 600 beds in the future to allow higher levels of enforcement and returns for those who have had their claim for asylum rejected.

Alan Tait from the Home Office said: “It will have a crucial role in enabling the removal of individuals who have no right to be in the UK. The site will help to increase the return rate. It is working on providing safe and secure, sustainable accommodation for 130 detained residents. The site has been designed to modern standards.”

Sitting in on the board, council leader Councillor Peter Chegwyn (Lib Dem, Forton) said: “Surely you must have known you would always need power? 

“You have had many planning permissions and works have been going on and on and on for many years now, spending millions at the taxpayers’ expense. Given you have all these permissions, why are you only bringing this application forward now when it could have come before us years ago?”

Mr Tait said: “That’s a fair challenge.” 

He explained that at the start, it was thought bringing the building back to life would be “straightforward and simple”. But all the plants and electricity had to be ripped out, along with RACC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) and asbestos being removed from the site. 

The board voted unanimously to approve application.