The Home Office has revealed they will be at Throckmorton, near Pershore in Worcestershire; RAF Newton near Bingham in Nottinghamshire; and on MoD land at Bicester in Oxfordshire.

A junior minister confirmed the decision ahead of the planned announcement this afternoon, because the news had already leaked out - and angry local residents were already venting their complaints on the airwaves.

Each centre will have 750 beds, and will provide a full range of facilities, although the asylum-seekers will also - in Downing Street's elegant phraseology - be able to interface with local communities.

Two other possible sites have been scrapped, but three more - on old RAF bases in Cardiff and Edinburgh, and in Lincolnshire, are still being considered. The plan is controversial, not least because asylum-seekers will be in relatively isolated rural areas.

In the last election campaign, the Conservatives promoted the idea of a network of reception centres for all asylum-seekers - though under those proposals, the centres would have been secure. But the Shadow Home secretary, Oliver Letwin, does not think that today's announcement will solve the problem.

Downing Street's response to such criticisms was to point out that everyone agreed last summer that the present system wasn't working

The Home Office Minister, Lord Rooker, told us this lunchtime that 'We are not dumping people in the countryside with no facilities. These will be fully self contained local communities .... though they will be able to interface with local communities they will not overwhelm them'.