The barge is a key part of the government’s policy to end the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.

The Home Office is facing a legal challenge over its use of the Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate around 500 male asylum-seekers at Portland Port in Dorset, without obtaining planning permission.

Byline Times reports that Carralyn Parkes a Portland Town Councillor and Mayor of Portland, ‘is acting in a personal capacity as a local resident’ with Dorset Council and Portland Port Limited backing the claim as “interested parties”, meaning that they will have the opportunity to make submissions, file evidence and participate in the case.

The barge has received much criticism from human rights groups, with Amnesty International comparing the Bibby Stockholm to “prison hulks from the Victorian era”, saying it was an “utterly shameful way to house people who’ve fled terror, conflict and persecution”.

The barge is a key part of the government’s policy to end the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.

A deadly legionella strain was also found onboard the Bibby Stockholm and was detected on the first day people boarded on 7 August, with officials evacuating all 39 people onboard that day.

Last week, the Guardian also reported that new testing of water samples on the Bibby Stockholm has also confirmed the presence of a potentially deadly strain of legionella onboard.

Byline reports: “Parkes is asking the Court to declare that the Home Office’s use of the barge as asylum accommodation is capable of constituting a ‘development’ under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and therefore that it may amount to a breach of planning control and possible enforcement action by Dorset Council.”

Parkes is arguing that the Home Office has sought to circumvent normal planning rules by using a boat as asylum accommodation.

Because the barge is outside of normal planning rules, it is also then outside the reach of “important” legal protections such as limits on overcrowding.

Carralyn Parkes told Byline Times: “In the 21st century, it’s appalling to think that we’ve even considered housing the most vulnerable people in the world on a barge. The accommodation is wholly unsuitable.

“If the government had put this through a planning procedure, I’m convinced it would have been denied, as the port is a closed area.”

Meanwhile a petition which was launched calling for the barge plan to be abandoned and for people to instead be accommodated in communities has gathered over 49,000 signatures.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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