TORY MP Peter Luff is urging Ministers to consider five alternative sites to Throckmorton to house a massive asylum centre.

He has written to the Home Office arguing every one of the venues is more suitable than the former Worcestershire RAF base - including two in the West Midlands.

Each of the sites is owned by the Government and is currently available on the open market.

The list features a boarded-up halls of residence at Birmingham University and the University of Wolverhampton's former campus in Dudley.

In a letter to Asylum Minister Bev Hughes, Mr Luff also named Deysbrook Barracks, in West Derby, Liverpool; a purpose-built residential boarding school at Milton Keynes; and halls of residence at the University of Huddersfield.

Mr Luff said he was not attempting to play "pass the parcel" with the issue of where to place asylum seekers.

But he wants to know whether any of the sites he has named have even been considered. He believes the Government did not explore all the possibilities before deciding to build the 750-bed centre at Throckmorton.

An admission by the Government none of his alternative proposals has been examined would prove this point, he said.

In the letter to Ms Hughes, seen by the Evening News, he wrote: "I believe the Government should be adopting a completely different approach, including the construction of smaller accommodation centres near major towns and cities, the policy of dispersal and, of course, floating units.

"For these reasons I have been very reluctant to play pass-the- parcel with the Throckmorton site, but I am disappointed by the Government's refusal to explain how it actually reached the decision to site asylum seekers in such an inappropriate location.

"A constituent of mine has drawn my attention to sites which are available on the market at present, all of which appear in one way or another more suitable sites.

"I would be grateful for your comments on whether they have been considered or not."

Mr Luff met Ms Hughes yesterday to give a short presentation on his idea to site asylum seekers on a barge, as in Holland.

The Minister said she would consider Mr Luff's letter, along with the presentation.