By Jimmy Nsubuga
A barge docked off the Dorset coast will hold around 500 asylum seekers for at least 18 months, the government has confirmed.
On Wednesday, the Home Office said “basic and functional accommodation” would be provided on the Bibby Stockholm vessel along with 24-hour security.
Human rights campaigners have condemned the announcement, and the local Tory council has said it has “serious reservations” about the plan.
But Rishi Sunak has defended the use of the barge, insisting it would save taxpayers money.
They reveal how the three-storey vessel looks inside, with a dining hall, kitchen and games area complete with pool table.
There also appears to be a bar on the floating accommodation, as well as gym facilities.
The photos provide a glimpse inside one of the 222 bedrooms on board with one image showing a shower room.
The barge can can house up to 506 people. (PA)
The barge can house up to 506 people. (PA)
The dining facilities on board the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge. (PA)
The dining facilities on board the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge. (PA)
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Dining facilities on the vessel. (PA)
Dining facilities on the vessel. (PA)
The Home Office has not set out the cost of the lease agreement with Bibby Marine, but estimates have put the overall price of the charter and the berthing at more than £20,000 a day.
Sunak said: “We are spending, as a country, £6 million a day housing illegal asylum seekers in hotels – that can’t be right.
“I’ve committed to reducing that number, moving asylum seekers out of hotels and that means we need to find alternative sites, including barges like the one we’ve brought forward today.”
Tory-run Dorset Council and local Conservative MP Richard Drax are considering launching legal action to prevent the barge being docked near the seaside resort of Weymouth.
In a statement, the council said: “Dorset Council’s position has not changed. We still have serious reservations about the appropriateness of Portland Port in this scenario and we remain opposed to the proposals.”
It added: “There are a number of questions which the home secretary’s announcement does not address, we will continue to press the Home Office for answers and await further information.”
A gym inside the barge. (PA)
One of the 222 bedrooms on the barge. (PA)
Human rights organisations have criticised the “cruelty” of “confining” hundreds of vulnerable people on a barge, as they blamed the government for creating the backlog of asylum claims.
Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds said all plans to hold migrants in former military barracks and boats should be “abandoned”.
He said: “Confining hundreds of people in isolation on a barge is just more of the political theatre that the government has created to obscure its gross mismanagement of the asylum system.”
The Refugee Council added the barge would be “completely inadequate” to house “vulnerable people who have come to our country in search of safety having fled beatings and death threats in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran”.
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