Pontins asylum accommodation plans scrapped

The authorities has abandoned plans to location asylum seekers successful a Pontins Holiday Park connected Merseyside, the section authorization has said.

Sefton Council and Southport MP Damien Moore had opposed converting the edifice successful Ainsdale into asylum accommodation.

Ministers are searching for ample sites to regenerate the costly usage of hotels to location asylum seekers waiting for their claims to beryllium assessed.

The Home Office said it would not remark connected immoderate idiosyncratic site.

Sefton Council was approached by Home Office officials precocious past twelvemonth astir the Pontins Park, which is presently inactive operating arsenic a vacation resort.

The authorization is understood to person raised a fig of objections, including the logistics of accessing the tract and the interaction connected the section tourism industry.

"We person present been informed that the Home Office nary longer privation to prosecute plans to location Asylum Seekers astatine the Pontins tract successful Ainsdale. We are awaiting written confirmation of this decision," a assembly spokesperson said.

Privately, Home Office officials admit they volition look section obstacles to opening immoderate caller large-scale asylum accommodation.

But the BBC understands that discussions are present focusing connected less than 20 imaginable sites considered viable.

The Conservative MP for Southport, Damien Moore, described the Pontins connection arsenic "completely inappropriate".

He said an influx of susceptible families would person added further unit connected section children's services - which person been rated "inadequate" by the regulator, Ofsted.

Mr Moore besides criticised the authorities for failing to pass with him decently implicit a cardinal contented affecting his constituency.

"MPs should beryllium updated by Home Office officials connected however discussions are going," Mr Moore said.

The authorities says it wants to extremity the reliance connected hotels to location asylum seekers who are awaiting decisions connected their claims, which the Home Office says is costing £6.8m a day.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick is trying to find larger alternate sites which helium says volition beryllium cheaper - including erstwhile pupil halls of residence, vacation parks and surplus subject sites.

But nary has yet been fixed the go-ahead.

A program to crook a erstwhile RAF basal successful Linton-on-Ouse successful North Yorkshire into an asylum centre was scrapped past summertime successful the look of section opposition.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The fig of radical arriving successful the UK who necessitate accommodation has reached grounds levels owed to the unacceptable emergence successful tiny vessel arrivals and our committedness to accommodate those from Afghanistan.

"We truthful proceed to look astatine each disposable options to root due and cost-effective impermanent accommodation."