A "migrant camp" which Labour promised to close last year is to be expanded due to a summer surge in Channel crossings.

The camp, at the disused RAF Wethersfield base near Braintree in Essex, will have its limit increased by more than 50 per cent.

The Home Office confirmed the limit on the number of migrants who can be housed at Wethersfield will be boosted from 800 to 1,225.

Sir Keir Starmer pledged just before the General Election to shut the camp down as Labour aimed to move migrants out of large camps and hotels.

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The Bibby Stockholm barge and RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire - the other two major sites identified by the former Tory Government, have both been abandoned and will be shut down by Labour.

Currently, the Home Office is facing a surge in the number of migrants reaching the South Coast.

The department said extra beds "can be brought into use to help manage short-term pressures across the wider asylum accommodation estate".

So far this year, 24,000 migrants have reached British shores, a 45 per cent increase on last year.

On Wednesday alone, GB News exclusively revealed that multiple lifeboats were called out to help with chaotic scenes in the Channel, as almost 900 small boat migrants attempted to cross to the UK.

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In 2023, locals were strongly opposed to the centre being built

A spokesman for Yvette Cooper's department said: "If called upon, the contingency bed spaces will only be utilised on a temporary basis until such time as the wider accommodation estate is able to manage demand, and the number accommodated at Wethersfield will be reduced back down to 800 bed spaces as soon as possible thereafter.

"Any increase in inflow on to the site to use contingency bed spaces will be gradual (increasing the maximum inflow from the normal 60 per week to 100 per week) and subject to the same rigorous procedures and reviews as for regular occupancy inflow."

Shadow Housing Secretary James Cleverly, whose constituency covers Wethersfield, urged ministers to close the camp.

"I was never happy that asylum seekers were held at Wethersfield and while Home Secretary, secured a cap on the numbers of asylum seekers there," he blasted.

"I remain opposed to any increase," he added.

And in a shot at Starmer's U-turn on closing the camp, Cleverly said: "He and Cooper are doing this because they scrapped the Rwanda deportation plan and failed to reduce small boat crossings."

The Wethersfield site is just 30 miles away from Epping, where protests have broken out due to a hotel which has been home to hundreds of single male asylum seekers since July 2023.

The protests were triggered after Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, a 38-year-old asylum seeker from Ethiopia, was charged with the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl.

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Kebatu denied the charge when he appeared in court on July 17.

The Tories, Epping District Council, and Roger Hirst, the Essex Police and Crime Commissioner, have all urged the Home Office to close the Bell Hotel, and move the migrants.

Priti Patel, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has also campaigned against the use of Wethersfield as a migrant camp.

"In opposition, Labour said they'd close this site down but now they are expanding it because of their stark failure to get to grips with illegal migration," she fumed.

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Protests broke out in Epping after Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu was charged with multiple sex offences

Patel was Home Secretary when the "New Plan for Immigration" was brought in, heralding the beginning of a migration surge dubbed the "Boriswave" by critics.

But she said: "Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper opposed every new law I advanced to deal with dangerous people smuggling gangs, including life sentences, and they scrapped my Rwanda partnership, which would have meant illegal migrants being sent there rather than Wethersfield and hotels.

"Labour's dishonesty, incompetence and lack of transparency is making this situation worse and encouraging more illegal migrants to come to Britain."