The first dedicated asylum appeals centre in Wales is planned to open in Newport by the end of the year at a cost of �3m.

The hearing centre will deal specifically with appeals against immigration and asylum decisions made by the Home Office.

Primarily, the Newport centre will cover south Wales and the surrounding area

Immigration Appellate Authority spokesman

Currently, the authority which hears asylum appeal cases uses courts in Cardiff.

But when the facility opens in the east of Newport it will become the specific hearing venue for Wales and south west England - dealing with up to 160 cases a week.

The Immigration Appellate Authority (IAA) - the tribunal which deals with the appeals - has leased Columbus House in Chepstow Road, Newport.

The building, near the Coldra roundabout on the M4, is being converted to house eight courts.

The court will deal with cases from Wales

"Primarily, the Newport centre will cover south Wales and the surrounding area, but will also be used by appellants within reasonable travelling distance - this could include parts of south west England," said a spokesman for the IAA.

"The works programme for the scheme at Newport is running at �3m. The court service is paying for all the new centres," he said.

It is being opened as part of a government drive to increase the number of appeal cases handled each month from 4,500 to 6,000 nationally.

Currently there are six hearing centres across the UK in, London, Hatton Cross, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester.

Newport is one of five new locations, including Stoke-on-Trent, North Shields, Bradford and Manchester, which have been allocated for additional hearing centres.

Home Office figures for 2001 showed that 43,415 appeals were heard by IAA adjudicators - only 19% were allowed.

"When fully operational the IAA will have eight courts in Newport," said the spokesman.

"Each court could hear a maximum of four cases a day.

"This would work out as Newport hearing 32 cases a day and a maximum of 160 cases a week," he said.

New jobs

The appeals centre will create 19 new jobs to support the adjudicators who hear the appeal cases.

The IAA have said that the court is not somewhere where asylum seekers will stay until their appeal is heard.

"The centre is most definitely not an accommodation centre," he said.

"The appellants will turn up for their appeal hearing and then leave the building."

In February, residents living in the village of Sully, near Cardiff, feared that the Home Office were considering using the site of a former psychiatric hospital to house 750 asylum seekers.

However, a spokeswoman for the Home Office confirmed that there were no plans at present to set up a 'removal centre' in Wales or south west England.