A former naval base near Gosport on the south coast of England is being considered for a new accommodation centre for asylum seekers, the Home Office has announced.

If planning permission is given, HMS Daedalus at Lee-on-Solent will house up to 400 men.

I do believe that an accommodation centre is not a detriment to a local community Beverley Hughes

The announcement of a smaller centre shows a shift in tack by the government towards looking at sites in towns and cities rather than in rural villages.

The Home Office also confirmed that it would not be pursuing for the trial, sites at Sully Hospital, South Glamorgan; AirWest, Edinburgh and RAF Hemswell in Lincolnshire.

But ministers are looking for sites in Scotland as an alternative to AirWest, Edinburgh, on which it will consult Scottish Ministers.

Home Office Minister, Beverley Hughes, said: "Accommodation centres for asylum seekers, combined with robust monitoring and removal procedures, will help us deliver an effective asylum and immigration system.

"We have continued looking for suitable sites since we made our initial announcement last year, and I am pleased that we are making further progress by announcing our interest in this site today."

'Incredulous'

She added: "If we decide to take another step forward and apply for planning permission, the Gosport site will allow us to develop the smaller-scale model which we announced in November last year.

"I realise there may be some concern among those living near to the sites, but I do believe that an accommodation centre is not a detriment to a local community.

Hughes: The centres will help build an 'effective' asylum system

"We will be working closely with the local community as we develop our proposals and go through the planning process."

But Tory Peter Viggers, MP for Gosport, said people living near the Daedalus site were "incredulous" it had been chosen.

"It is a small, quiet community of about 6,000 people, mostly retired people," he said.

"The plan to put up to 500 asylum seekers adjacent to them would have a result that would be devastating."

Anger

Graham Burgess, Tory councillor on Gosport Council, said he had been besieged by calls and e-mails from people concerned about a rise in crime and asylum seekers taking priority in local medical and housing services.

Shaun Cully, the Labour leader of Gosport council, said he became suspicious when he found out that home office officials were coming to the town for a meeting, but had not invited any councillors.

Government has performed 'half a u-turn'

Gosport already has a detention centre, Haslar, which houses asylum seekers awaiting deportation or appeals to stay in Britain.

Shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin said the asylum system was "in chaos" and needed to be replaced with a system of quotas.

He reiterated Tory calls for asylum seekers to be locked up while they are security checked.

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman, said the government had "taken a very long time to make half a u-turn" towards using smaller asylum centres.

Protests

The proposal to use Daedalus, which closed in 1992, comes nine months after the Home Office announced its first six sites in rural areas.

But after problems and protests, work has yet to begin on the first accommodation centre, designed to hold up to 750 asylum seekers while their claims are processed.

The government has already scrapped plans to build a centre at the Ministry of Defence site in Throckmorton, Worcestershire, as a concession to get the Nationality, Asylum and Immigration Act through Parliament.

Sites at Bicester, Oxfordshire, and at RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire, are still being considered by planning inspectors after local councils objected.

The Refugee Council has urged the Home Office to consider building smaller centres in urban areas with a broader ethnic mix and with better access to facilities.

Last week the prime minister pledged to cut by half the number of asylum seekers entering Britain in September.

Later this month the Home Office is due to announce figures that show numbers of people entering Britain has reached record levels of more than 100,000 a year.

Accommodation centres will not be secure facilities but applicants will be required to stay in the centre as a condition of government support.