Decision decried as ‘morally bankrupt ploy to reduce our obligations to the most desperate people’
It has been described as Guantánamo-on-Ouse: a giant one-stop reception centre for asylum seekers due to open within weeks slap bang in the middle of a quiet, bucolic North Yorkshire village.
“When we first heard about it they said 500 people and we thought that’s just about manageable,” said 67-year-old Taff Morgan. “Then last night we heard 1,500 and that might not be the maximum. It depends on how many they can fit in.”