Sully Hospital catered for up to 450 patients

The Home Office announcement of new "villages" for asylum seekers have been whittled down from a short list of eight.

The Sully plans provoked an outcry from residents, who have staged protest meetings.

Campaigners say that housing 750 immigrants in a village of 2,500 people would have led to significant problems.

Vale of Glamorgan MP John Smith said he was pleased Sully Hospital had not been chosen, and wants reassurances that the site will not be used at all as an accommodation centre.

Government sources, though, have said Sully is still under consideration, and Whitehall has stressed that Wales will one day have its own refugee accommodation centre.

Under the Sully proposals, asylum seekers would be held in non-secure surroundings, which has provoked local protests.

Concern expressed

Refugees would be allowed to enter and leave freely and receive support from back-up services.

There have been no plans drawn up by the UK Government for detention centres in Wales.

Tory AM David Melding has expressed concern about the lack of consultation undertaken by the Home Office with the assembly and the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

The government is facing a continuing challenge over where to house the growing thousands of asylum seekers reaching the country each year.

The dilapidated entrance sign to the site

Attracted by more favourable conditions, in 2000, more than 80,000 applied for asylum in the UK.

Introduced with the 1999 Asylum and Immigration Act, the dispersal scheme aims to stop the influx of applicants.

It is also aimed at relieving housing pressures in the south-east of England by scattering applicants - without choice - throughout UK regions, excluding Northern Ireland.

The Vale of Glamorgan Council would have to help immigrants find health and education services.

Sully Hospital originally opened in 1936 as a tuberculosis sanatorium and is now a grade two listed building.