Failed asylum seekers get new £80,000 astroturf football pitch in their detention centre while schools nearby are forced to sell off their own fields

• Illegal immigrants got sports facility at Campsfield House, Kidlington
• 216 men at the centre also have a fitness suite, IT centre and library
  
• 50 playing fields have been sold off over the last three years

By EMMA THOMAS

Published: 05:28 EST, 18 January 2014 | Updated: 12:45 EST, 18 January 2014

Failed asylum seekers have been given an £80,000 astroturf football pitch paid for by taxpayers as schools are forced to sell their own grounds.

Asylum seekers got their own sports facility at Campsfield House, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, to use while they are waiting to be deported.

While struggling schools are selling their own facilities to pay for improvements, the 216 men at the centre also have a fitness suite, IT centre, library and are given money for winning sports competitions. 

Campsfield House Detention Centre in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, now has a new astroturf pitch

Banbury Academy, which is near to the centre, is selling its playing fields to developers for £750,000 so it can afford to build a new sports hall and an all-weather pitch for students.

The school says selling the playing fields is the only way to fund 'desperately-needed' improvements.

According to the Sun, North Kidlington primary is holding jumble sales to fund a new play area and children at Bletchingdon primary have to walk 800 yards to a village hall for PE lessons.

UKIP campaigner Paul Nuttal told the Sun he thought the money spent at the detention centre was wrong.

He said: 'While services are stretched to breaking point, taxpayers are forking out so illegal immigrants can have a good kickabout.'

Last summer, it emerged that 50 playing fields had been sold off over the last three years in what was labelled a 'threat to our Olympic legacy'.

On average, 17 are closed every year, most in Conservative local authorities.

The figures make a mockery of a pledge to protect them in the Coalition agreement.

Banbury Academy, which is near to the centre, is selling its playing fields to developers for £750,000

This followed the huge outcry over Labour disposing of playing fields at the slightly higher rate of 28 each year.

The deals included the sale of a football pitch to a developer by Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Hampshire, whose former pupils include gold medal-winning cyclist Dani King.

Elliott School in Putney, south London, was allowed to sell five acres of fields with six tennis courts, a football pitch and a playground to make way for luxury housing.

Several sales have gone ahead against the advice of the independent playing fields panel.

Only five have been rejected by the Department for Education. The DfE claims the rule change is needed to allow more school places to be created quickly.