A PRISON which was ripped apart during a 21-hour riot could be transformed into a centre for asylum seekers, it was revealed this week.
Huge parts of HMP Ashwell were burned to the ground during the violence last Easter but the building could now rise from the ashes as an immigration detention centre.
Rutland MP Alan Duncan has learned the prison appears on a Ministry of Justice l
ist of possible sites for a new centre to house foreign nationals awaiting decisions on their asylum claims or deportation following a failed application.
Although the Government has refused to confirm the plan, Mr Duncan (Con) has vowed to fight the proposal.
He said: "This is the wrong place for such a centre and an utterly inappropriate idea.
"I am wholly opposed to it in every conceivable respect and cannot think of a single convincing argument for making such a change."
It is understood the Government put Ashwell on the site list shortly after the riot in April which destroyed 75 per cent of the buildings.
Since then more than £818,000 has been spent on repairs.
A whittled-down list of sites for immigration detention centres was due to be drawn up before Christmas but so far nothing has been released.
Mr Duncan, who is shadow prisons minister, has called for a meeting with the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw.
He hopes to put a stop to the discussions until after the general election, when he hopes the Conservatives will come into power and scrap the idea.
He said: "There is not even the remotest link between the characteristics of Rutland and the sort of area in which illegal immigrants might be found. Ashwell could not be further away from the locality in which this phenomenon arises.
"Furthermore, Rutland County Council is a very small unitary authority on whose resources the demands potentially made by an immigration removal centre, unlike a prison, would be viciously detrimental."
The Prison Service is remaining tight-lipped over its plans.
A spokesman said: "A strategic review of the future of HMP Ashwell is currently under way and is looking at a range of possible options for the future of the prison."
Former prison officer Barry Clithero, of Burley Crescent, Ashwell, left the prison last February. His former colleagues have told him they have heard rumours about the immigration centre but had no official from their bosses.
Before the riots the prison held 611 inmates and had a maximum capacity of 619. About 420 prisoners started a riot and lit fires in a workshop and several prison wings. The police have since arrested 23 inmates with another 82 identified as suspects.
