MINISTERS were forced into a humiliating climbdown yesterday when they scrapped plans to house thousands of asylum-seekers in the heart of rural communities.

David Blunkett had claimed that the proposals he made as Home Secretary for a network of accommodation centres was a cornerstone of government policy to keep track of asylum-seekers and make it easier to deport failed claimants.

But The Times has learnt that the Home Office has now quietly dropped the plans for a multimillion-pound network of centres after spending more than £1 million searching for sites throughout the UK and constesting a series of bitterly fought planning applications.

Ministers ran into a barrage of criticism over their plan to locate the centres in rural areas of Worcestershire, Oxfordshire and Nottinghamshire. Protesters gave warning that housing hundreds of mainly single young men in isolated areas risked provoking racial tensions. Only one centre to house 750 men has received planning permission but building has not begun.

The Home Office has called off the search for a further three sites for £60 million centres which were to house 750 asylum-seekers for six months while their claims were processed.

Three years ago accommodation centres were said by Mr Blunkett, who was then the Home Secretary, to be a “central part” of a process that would track and support asylum-seekers from induction, through reporting and accommodation, to removal or integration.

While the numbers of asylum-seekers has fallen in the past two years, the number being removed has remained broadly unchanged. Now a key part of the policy has been killed off by Tony McNulty, the Immigration Minister. He made the disclosure in a written parliamentary answer as MPs left Westminster for the weekend.

Asked how many accommodation centres apart from the one given planning permission would be built in the next five years, Mr McNulty replied: “We do not expect to build any further accommodation centres over the next five years.”

Planning permission for a centre on disused Ministry of Defence land at Bicester, Oxfordshire, has been given but an appeal against the design of the building starts next month. Even if ministers win approval, the centre could not open until next year. Some preparatory work at the site, including erecting a new boundary fence, has been carried out but not a brick has been laid towards erecting the centre. There is now doubt about whether this centre will ever be built.

The Conservatives and opponents said last night that the Government’s announcement showed that Mr Blunkett’s policy had not been properly thought out.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This demonstrates only too clearly that the policy has crashed and burnt like the rest of the Government’s asylum policy.” He added: “This shows what happens when the Government throws together thoughtless policies as a panic-stricken response to their failures.”

Rupert Segar, one of the leaders of the campaign to stop a centre at Throckmorton, in Worcestershire, said: “At the time we thought the whole policy was a complete and utter nonsense.”

He added: “There was a great deal of hysteria at the time and the politicans were whipped into a frenzy and they had to be seen to act. If you were cynical you might think the plans were announced just to take the steam out of the rowm, and it worked.”

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