{"id":692493,"date":"2026-07-15T06:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692493\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T06:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:05:18","slug":"raf-barnham-asylum-plan-could-be-stalled-by-rare-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692493\/","title":{"rendered":"RAF Barnham asylum plan could be stalled by rare birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plans to house asylum seekers at a military base would be illegal due to the site being home to a rare, protected bird, a councillor has said.<\/p>\n

RAF Barnham, just south of the Norfolk\/Suffolk border, has become the focus of weeks of anger since the Home Office earmarked it as one of three sites to house a total of 3,750 asylum seekers.<\/p>\n

The plans may face their biggest hurdle yet in the form of the stone-curlew, which nests in the countryside around the site.<\/p>\n

The stone-curlew’s habitats are protected by law<\/a> and Cliff Waterman, Labour leader of West Suffolk Council, said it meant the site could not be used for asylum seeker accommodation. <\/p>\n

The Home Office said any proposals would be subject to all relevant legal, environmental and regulatory requirements.<\/p>\n

The military base lies within the Breckland Special Protection Area, an internationally designated wildlife zone which stretches across Norfolk and Suffolk.<\/p>\n

Barnham Cross Common, which borders the base, also carries its own protections as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.<\/p>\n

The areas have earned the protections largely because they are habitats for stone-curlews and other rare birds.<\/p>\n

The stone-curlew is an elusive bird, sensitive to human disturbance, and it relies on the area’s mixture of bare, stony ground and short-grazed grass to forage.<\/p>\n

The birds have repeatedly disrupted planning applications<\/a> in and around the Brecks in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to house asylum seekers at a military base would be illegal due to the site being home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-692493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}