REPORTS suggesting plans for an asylum centre in a Worcestershire village are only just being abandoned have been criticised.
The Home Office has scrapped its policy of creating rural accommodation centres for asylum seekers.
Media reports over the weekend suggested the decision included the hugely controversial plans to build one in Throckmorton, near Pershore. But that was completely abandoned in November 2002.
"I have decided not to pursue our proposal for a centre at Throckmorton airfield," then-Home Office minister Beverly Hughes told Parliament.
Mid Worcestershire MP Peter Luff said he had received several calls over the weekend following speculation the Worc-estershire plan was only now being dropped.
"This is a silly story. It was shelved irrevocably three years ago on the floor of the House of Commons," he said this morning.
County councillor Liz Tucker, who was chairman of the pressure group Protest Against the Asylum Centre at Throckmorton, welcomed the scrapping of the policy.
"I'm particularly pleased that in the other sites, where plans had been forced through in the teeth of local opposition, sense has prevailed," she said.
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