'Nobody told us!' Sussex MP 'disgusted' with plan to house hundreds of migrants in heart of rural England

Nine hundred asylum seekers will be moved into the Cameron Barracks in Inverness as well as the Crowborough Training Camp in East Sussex "within a few weeks", a Labour minister confirmed.

Home to a population of approximately 20,000, Crowborough residents and local officials have expressed concern over inviting the migrants into the area.

However, the MP of Sussex Weald also took issue with the way that individuals, including the Member of Parliament and other local authority figures, were not informed of the decision beforehand.

Speaking to Nana Akua, Ms Ghani said: "The reason why we're really disgusted with what's happened today is the first time we heard about it was via The Times newspaper, then the Today programme ringing us.

"Nobody from the Home Office contacted us," the Tory fumed.

"What's been really depressing is that the Home Office have been negotiating or in talks with the district council, who've known for a month."

But the authorities have failed to share any of the information with "any of the locally elected representative or the community".

Additionally, another point of concern was that the former Conservative Government deemed the building as "unfit for habitation".

"It has really peculiar odd buildings all over. It requires a hell of a lot of investment in infrastructure.

"So this isn't a cheap site. It's in the edge of a forest near a town, and quite frankly, it isn't quite easy to contain because the forest is a public space as well, so the site was deemed inappropriate," she told Nana.

As a result, Ms Ghani admitted that she and other officials feel "incredibly anxious that there are talks taking place between the Home Office and the council".

"None of us are across this. It was rejected before, so why is it a viable site now?" she asked.

Ms Ghani also asked why the council has granted the Home Office planning permission.

"We just can't understand how this is happening, why it's happening, if it was such a good project. Why it's been kept so secret", she said.

Delivering an ardent defence of the plans, Defence Minister Luke Pollard told GB News: "What we've done is we've listened to communities from across the country who are expressing quite rightly concern around the number of asylum hotels in their communities.

"The Prime Minister has made the commitment to close all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament, but we want to do it faster, and he has asked all Government departments to step up, and the Ministry of Defence is stepping up."

He added that his department was "supporting Home Office colleagues" to speed up the closure of asylum hotels and assist with the faster processing of applications.

"Twenty four per cent of that backlog we inherited is already gone, but we know there's a lot more to do, and I think the MoD can and is stepping up to support that whole of Government," he told the People's Channel.