The Mirror reports that half a million pounds was wasted on barges that couldn’t be used to house migrants as there were no ports to put them:
Bungling officials also spent £3million on refurbishing an RAF based before plans to use it as accommodation were dropped. Tory ministers claimed they would save money by moving migrants out of hotels and into alternatives such as barges, military bases and former student accommodation.
But overall the National Audit Office found it had worked out at £46million more expensive. The Home Office had hoped it would cost £5million each to refurbish RAF Wethersfield and RAF Scampton.
But the true costs were £49million and £27million respectively. By the end of last year the Government hoped to have 25,000 asylum seekers living on disused military bases, ports, holiday camps, converted office buildings and "hard-sided tents".
But by January it managed just 900 across four sites - Scampton and Wethersfield, the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset and old student accommodation in Huddersfield. The NAO report said £2.9million was spent on abandoned plans to move people to a former RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse. The document went on: "It (the Home Office) also paid around £0.5million to reserve vessels it had earmarked as asylum accommodation but was unable to use as it could not secure a suitable port."
Weren't the Tories the party that used to advocate value for money? Whatever happened to them?
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