A giant barge will arrive in the UK this week to be refitted and prepared to accommodate 500 asylum seekers.
Government sources said it will be towed into an undisclosed port on the south coast of England, where Bibby Marine, the company that owns the vessel, will repurpose it in accordance with the Home Office’s requirements. It will then be towed to Portland Port, in Dorset, and migrants will start being moved in at the end of June.
The Home Office has leased the vessel, named the Bibby Stockholm, for 18 months. It is the first accommodation vessel contracted by the Home Office to house migrants.
The department is in talks to lease further vessels to accommodate asylum seekers, including a proposal to house 1,800 on a former cruise ship on the River Mersey near Birkenhead, although the Home Office denied reports that it is planning to use ten disused cruise ships, ferries and barges around the country.
The government is in talks with Peel Ports, which owns and operates the waterfront and port infrastructure in Birkenhead, but the proposal has already sparked opposition as the vessel would be moored close to Wirral Waters, a £4.5 billion development that is being built.
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The barge that is being planned for Portland Port will accommodate a maximum of 506 migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats while they await the outcome of their asylum claim. It was last used in Genoa in Italy. The barge is being towed to the south coast of England, a journey that will take several days as it has no engine and can only be towed at a pace of 3-5 knots.
Only single adult men will be placed on the barge, while their asylum claims are processed. It will serve as “basic and functional accommodation” as well as offering healthcare and catering facilities. A private security company will provide security around the clock in order to “minimise the disruption to local communities”, the Home Office said.
A separate contractor, believed to be Corporate Travel Management Ltd, will handle the day-to-day management of migrants on board.
Those housed on the barge will be free to come and go but will have to be bussed to and from the port’s entry each time they want to leave as it is a working port. If an asylum seeker is not back on site by 11pm the team on the barge will call the individual to check on their whereabouts, although they will not be under any compulsion to return as there will not be any curfew conditions.
The barge is among five new sites that the Home Office has announced in order to start transferring some of the 51,000 migrants who are living in about 400 hotels into alternative accommodation.
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More than 6,000 migrants have arrived this year, with 246 arriving in six boats on Monday. This year’s total is about 15 per cent less than the number that had arrived by this time in 2022.
One of the new accommodation sites announced by the Home Office to hold migrants is the redundant RAF Wethersfield airfield in Braintree. James Cleverly, the foreign secretary and local MP, has voiced his opposition to the plans despite his cabinet post.
On Tuesday he defended his position, insisting that no MP would want a large accommodation facility for asylum seekers in their constituency.
He told Sky News: “Of course, no one would want a facility like that in their constituency . . . but the point I’m saying is that the legislation we are putting through is to reduce the need for facilities like that.”
