THE suggestion that an asylum seeker removal centre may be built in the Stansted area has been slammed as inhumane and a security risk.

A Home Office spokeswoman has confirmed that three sites in the area are being considered for the development. They are at the former terminal building at Stansted Airport, Thremhall Priory on the A120 between Takeley and the Birchanger roundabout and Smith Farm Industrial estate in Chelmsford Road, Dunmow.

She stressed that sites in Liverpool and Lancashire were also being looked at and a decision would be made "fairly soon" as there was an urgent need to increase the national capacity in removal centres from the current level of 2,193 to 4,000.

Uttlesford Liberal Democrat Leader Mark Gayler said: "Uttlesford should play its part in providing support to refugees, but incarcerating them in a centre which in reality would be a prison is not a humane way of dealing with them.

"Many of those seeking asylum have endured extreme suffering in their own countries. For them to seek sanctuary from persecution and then be subjected to imprisonment here is appalling."

Stansted and Saffron Walden MP Sir Alan Haselhurst is also against the plans, although he says there is a need for such centres.

"I don't want to be a NIMBY but I have an instinctive reaction against having one in my constituency," he said.

He added that building one inside the airport would be too great a security risk following the recent riot at a similar centre in Bedford.

Uttlesford Council will meet Home Office representatives on Wednesday, March 13, to discuss the plans.