Cameron Barracks: Asylum Accommodation Profile

Cameron Barracks, located on the eastern side of Inverness, is a historic British Army site that has been on the Ministry of Defence estate for over a century. It was identified by the Home Office as a candidate site for large-scale asylum accommodation, and sits as the Scottish anchor of the large-sites programme alongside Wethersfield in Essex and Crowborough in East Sussex.

The official GOV.UK factsheet confirms the site will be used as temporary asylum accommodation for up to about 300 unaccompanied adult men aged 18 to 65, with operational use from 2026^[1].

STV News reported that preparatory work at Cameron Barracks has involved two main disclosed refurbishment contracts: an approximately £300,000package of preparatory works plus a roughly £1 millionredecoration and soft-fit contract, together totalling around £1.3 million of publicly disclosed refurbishment spending. The larger redecoration contract was not due to complete until April 2026, which determined the effective operational opening date^[2].

The £1.3 million refurbishment figure covers preparatory capital work only. It does not include the ongoing per-person-per-night contractor payments, security, utilities, MoD licence fees or programme overhead which will accrue once the site is in operational use.

As with Crowborough, there is no NAO-verified whole-life figure yet because the site has only just opened. The taxpayer-cost estimate shown in the callout uses the Migration Observatory's ~£170 per person per night all-in benchmark^[5] multiplied by peak contracted capacity (300 men) and days in use to date. That approach captures the fixed standby costs the Home Office pays regardless of occupancy, the structural driver the National Audit Office identified as the main reason the large-sites programme costs more per person than hotels rather than less^[4]. The House of Commons Library briefing confirms Cameron Barracks as one of the main operational large sites in the Home Office estate^[3].