From Hotels to Barracks: What the UK’s New Asylum Strategy Reveals About Its Crisis Response
In a stark sign of Britain’s escalating immigration challenge, the Labour government is now actively exploring the use of military and industrial sites to house asylum seekers — a move that draws praise from some as pragmatic governance but alarm from others as a silent slide toward securitised border policy.
Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed over the weekend that military planners are collaborating with the Home Office to identify temporary housing solutions across military and non-military land. New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to announce proposals within weeks to accelerate the closure of hotel accommodation, with growing pressure from communities frustrated by rising costs and social tension.
But this evolving infrastructure response — from hotels and disused barracks to warehouses and prefab modular buildings — raises deep questions about governance, humanity, and long-term sustainability. Most crucially, it mirrors another crisis that looms ever larger on the horizon: the UK’s climate preparedness deficit.
A Shifting Policy Landscape
Britain currently houses over 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels, a figure that, while down from the 2023 Conservative-era peak of 56,000, still costs the taxpayer billions. The 10-year cost of asylum accommodation is now estimated at £15.3 billion, largely due to hotel dependency. Labour, under Keir Starmer’s leadership, has made clear that such costs are unsustainable and socially divisive.
To that end, military sites like MDP Wethersfield in Essex and Napier Barracks in Kent — both controversial legacies of Tory policy — are being retained and even expanded. Proposals are now being drawn to use modular prefabricated buildings on industrial land, and potentially warehouses, to accelerate transition from hotel usage.
While framed as temporary fixes, these modular and militarised solutions risk becoming institutionalised infrastructure — quiet yet permanent fixtures in a country struggling to reconcile compassion with control.
A Humanitarian and Climate Tangle
The conversation, however, cannot be separated from two intersecting forces: climate displacement and Britain’s own climate vulnerability.
The global refugee landscape is increasingly shaped by climate-driven displacement — floods, droughts, and sea-level rise are forcing millions from homes in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and beyond. Britain, as a historic carbon emitter and G7 economy, will face rising moral and geopolitical responsibility to offer safe refuge.
At the same time, Britain’s own climate infrastructure is under strain. The use of military land and prefab centres for housing highlights not just immigration urgency, but broader weaknesses in national emergency housing strategy. As wildfires, floods, and storms intensify in the UK, the absence of a resilient, humane emergency housing model becomes even more glaring.
What happens when the same prefabs used to house asylum seekers are needed for flood-displaced UK citizens? Will they be repurposed? Rebuilt? Or will vulnerable groups be pitted against each other in the race for shelter?
Reform and Right-Wing Responses: Authoritarian Drift?
The debate is also becoming dangerously polarised. Reform UK is calling for the mass deportation of 600,000 migrants, and the construction of modular detention centres in “remote” areas — a vision eerily reminiscent of punitive internment camps, thinly disguised under the language of “non-punitive” modularity.
While party leaders deny they’ll use “shipping containers,” the optics of mass containment reflect a chilling trend — one where migrants are not seen as people, but problems to be warehoused.
Time to Rethink Housing as a National Resilience Issue
The UK cannot afford to treat asylum housing as a single-issue problem. It is a climate, economic, social and infrastructure issue, all rolled into one.
Rather than building isolated “migrant zones” on military land, Britain should invest in sustainable housing solutions — modular, yes, but integrated with broader resilience planning that can serve both migrant and climate-displaced populations.
Only then can the country claim it is acting not just swiftly, but ethically and intelligently, in a century defined by human mobility and environmental disruption.
