'This will just encourage more illegal migrants to come to Britain': Anger over plans for processing centre at historic naval port as families of Navy veterans ask 'what did they serve for?'

Plans to convert a historic sea fort into a processing centre for small boat migrants will only encourage more illegal crossings, a Conservative MP has warned.Fort Blockhouse, which was built in the 19th century to guard the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, could be used as a reception centre as part of contingency proposals for dealing with small boats crossing the Channel into Hampshire. Typically, small boats have sailed towards Kent, but smugglers have recently shifted tactics by launching vessels from Normandy towards Hampshire – a route that is both longer and more dangerous. Dame Caroline Dinenage, the Conservative MP for Gosport – where the fort is located – said that opening a new processing centre would send out the wrong message. 'Portsmouth Harbour is an inappropriate disembarkation spot for migrant boats,' she told the Daily Mail. 'Hopefully future Channel crossings towards our area will now be taken straight to Kent, with its existing processing infrastructure.'We don't have appropriate facilities or transport infrastructure and opening up new sites here would simply incentivise more illegal boats to make this perilous journey from France.' Fort Blockhouse is less than a mile from what is set to become Britain's largest immigration detention centre – prompting concerns about concentrating Home Office infrastructure in an area that has seen repeated protests. Protests broke out in Gosport last Tuesday after anti-migrant activist 'Danny Tommo' – real name Daniel Thomas – told his supporters that 50 small boat migrants were about to be brought ashore there.To avoid the mob, Border Force boats rerouted the migrants to Dover. But violence broke out in Gosport, leading to six arrests, while three coaches waiting to pick up the asylum seekers required police escorts.Gosport is already home to Haslar Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), which closed a decade ago but is set to reopen after an expansion that will allow it to house 600 foreign criminals and illegal migrants over three storeys.Tensions over illegal migration are high in the local area, and nearby Portsmouth Lifeboat Station was recently forced to suspend operations after its volunteers suffered physical and online abuse.The plans for Fort Blockhouse have angered many of the military families that live in the area. Fort Blockhouse, which was built in the 19th century to guard the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, could be used as a reception centre for small boat migrants Gosport is already home to Haslar Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), which closed a decade ago but is set to be reopened and enlarged to house 600 foreign criminals and illegal migrantsProtesters – some wearing masks – gathered in Gosport on Tuesday when small boat migrants were due to dock there Local retiree Lesley Cox, 78, whose eldest son fought in the Royal Navy, said she was 'disgusted' by the proposal to convert the fort. 'We weren't told about Fort Blockhouse. It's the secrecy of it all. Why is it not out in the open? I've lived in Gosport for 30 years and I'm most definitely seeing it become the UK capital for illegal migrants.'Immigration has always happened in the area and it's not been a problem, but now it's changing out of all proportion.'I have to think about my family and the impact it will have. My eldest son was in the Navy fighting for this country, and you think what for?Ken Williams, 84, and Sue Williams, 78, are both retired. Mr Williams used to work for the MOD and his wife used to work for an armament depot.Mr Williams said of the plans for the fort: 'I'm dead against it. We haven't got the infrastructure for more migrants in Gosport.'I'm all for people coming here legally. That's what makes this country.'My father fought alongside the Gurkhas in India - I was raised to respect people of all colours.'People want to come to this country for a better life and you can't blame them.'But some are coming in without passports or any kind of accreditation so you don't know who they are - and now they're using our town to process them?'Cllr Zoe Huggins, the leader of Gosport Borough Council, has written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to protest against the proposal.She said the area has already seen a series of anti-immigration protests, including an incident on September 6 when 200 people gathered at nearby Eastney beach to confront 140 migrants being brought ashore from a packed dinghy.'We should learn from these events when considering potential locations and ensure that the characteristics and constraints of each site are properly understood and researched before decisions are made,' she told Ms Mahmood.Ms Huggins pointed out that Fort Blockhouse is located on a peninsula with only one route out, which would make it easy for protesters to block any coaches attempting to leave the site.Across town, near Haslar IRC, residents complain that their lives have been made 'hell' by two years of 'constant' building work beginning in the early hours of the morning.It is being refurbished after shutting down in 2015 following a parliamentary review, which highlighted immigration detention as 'expensive and damaging to detainees'.The newly expanded facility will have 600 beds for detained men, who will be unable to leave the centre or access the local area. Migrants clamber to board a taxi boat at the beach in Oye Plage near Calais in northern France earlier this week Vick, a local resident and member of the armed forces, who did not want to give her surname, said the IRC expansion and fort conversion could lead to further unrest in the local area. She said: 'I'm not against the IRC being used in its current capacity. It's good for job opportunities in Gosport. But the additional 600 I don't agree with.'I'm worried about the number of migrants in the area attracting trouble – not just because of them but also the so-called 'patriots' it's been attracting.'They were up and down the street the other night when that small boat was brought in from the Channel.'A Government spokesman said: 'The Border Security Command works around the clock to protect our border and will continue to detain, check and process every small boat arrival.'Colin, another armed forces member, said: 'If I'm honest I'd prefer it's all down there at the fort rather than spread between there and the IRC. 'It's going to cost so much to refurbish them both when costs for redoing sites is already astronomical for the MOD.'It comes amid fears a group of illegal migrants could be on the run from the authorities after arriving undetected in a sleepy Cornish harbour.Locals in Mylor, near Falmouth, said 18 migrants fled into the darkness after arriving on a yacht in the early hours of Sunday.Two Albanian men were arrested at the scene but others were driven away in a van, a Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said.Eight other arrests were understood to have been made later in a different police force area.An individual thought to be under 18 was also referred to social services, the Home Office said.A Home Office spokesman said: 'Officers responded quickly to an isolated and rare incident at Mylor Harbour, Falmouth.'Ten individuals have since been arrested. Another individual understood to be under 18 was referred to social services.'There is an ongoing investigation, and it would be inappropriate to comment further.' Last Monday witnesses said a small boat carrying at least seven migrants landed just off the Warren nature reserve, east of Folkestone.The following day up to 30 people arrived on Samphire Hoe between Dover and Folkestone.Cabinet minister Lucy Powell admitted last week that the Government 'can't stop everything all of the time' as she was grilled over a week of chaos.It came after a Border Force union warned last week that migrant boats were 'definitely' arriving on British shores completely undetected along the full length of the south coast.Lucy Moreton, from the ISU border, immigration and customs union, said: 'It's absolutely, definitely happening.'If no-one sees them, no-one sees them.'But we know that we've had abandoned vessels, we've had reports of uncontrolled landings all the way down to Falmouth.'Ultimately, we do not know how many are not identified, or how many are lost at sea, because we just don't have that monitoring that we do from the beaches around the Calais area.'Ms Moreton accused the Home Office of taking a position of: 'If we don't look for it, we don't know it's happening. We don't know it's happening, we don't have to deal with it.'The latest development came as three more migrants, including a child, tragically died in the Channel.A ten-year-old child and two women were confirmed dead after their boat got into difficulty in the Channel.French authorities said 105 people on board the migrant dinghy were rescued after calling for assistance.A medical team was transported to the rescue boat by helicopter to help the survivors, but the child and two women could not be saved.The accident happened after the dinghy had left Bleriot Plage, near Calais, yesterday morning, with ship tracking data showing rescue boats still in the area.