Larkhill Camp, Wiltshire

The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), launched in April 2021, and the parallel Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), are Ministry of Defence and Home Office schemes for Afghans who supported British forces or are at risk because of their work for the UK in Afghanistan. The House of Commons Library research briefing on these schemes explains that beneficiaries are granted indefinite leave to remain on arrival in the UK and are policy and operationally distinct from people in the Home Office asylum dispersal system, who are awaiting decisions on protection claims^[4]GOV.UK. Sites like Larkhill that house ARAP residents in transitional Service Family Accommodation are therefore counted separately from contingency hotels under the Mears, Serco and Clearsprings asylum accommodation contracts.

Larkhill is a long established Army garrison on the northern edge of Salisbury Plain, the home of the Royal School of Artillery and one of the largest military training estates in Western Europe. The site is owned and operated by the Ministry of Defence and is occupied by serving personnel and their families, with surplus Service Family Accommodation also used for transitional Afghan housing under ARAP.

Action on Armed Violence's analysis of the same Ministry of Defence Freedom of Information disclosure confirms that Larkhill is one of several Transitional Service Family Accommodation sites used for Afghan Entitled Persons under ARAP. The disclosure recorded 265 individuals at Larkhill out of a UK total of 2,356 Afghan nationals in MoD accommodation in mid 2024^[2]Press. The cohort housed at Larkhill and other military sites includes interpreters, locally employed civilians who worked with British forces, and members of the Afghan units known as the Triples that worked with British special forces.

The National separately reported on ARAP relocations into UK military sites, including Larkhill, describing the MoD programme as a transitional measure pending dispersal into civilian housing^[3]Press.

The MoD policy intent for Transitional Service Family Accommodation under ARAP was for stays of around six weeks before residents moved on to settled civilian housing. The Ministry of Defence FOI return reported by Byline Times showed that 679 Afghan nationals had been in MoD accommodation for more than six months by mid 2024, with several sites including Larkhill housing entire cohorts well beyond the original transitional window^[1]Press. Action on Armed Violence highlighted the same gap between policy intent and lived experience, noting that the five year wait before applying for British citizenship combined with employment restrictions was constraining the move into permanent housing^[2]Press.