Councillor Anthony Ernest called the plans a "bombshell"

The meeting comes a day after £100m Yarl's Wood asylum centre in Bedordshire was partially destroyed during an outbreak of violence by detainees who absconded.

Four of the sites under Home Officer consideration will be chosen and if Sully is picked following the consultation, the hospital, which shut 18 months ago and is now the site for the Ty Hafan children's hospice, would house immigrants by 2003.

But Conservative local councillor Anthony Ernest said the proposals had come as a "bombshell."

"The problem we have is that Sully is a small village.

"We've only got an adult population of something like 2,500 and quite clearly, if 750 economic asylum seekers were to come into the village to the Sully Hospital site, then I think it would create very real problems in respect of the services that are provided here.

Sully Hospital catered for 450 at its busiest

"Basically the village has only got a couple of shops, a hairdresser, a post office, and that's about it and the local school is full and the secondary school is full."

He denied he was overreacting in the wake of the Yarl's Wood incident as Sully was earmarked as a possible accommodation centre and not a secure unit.

"It would be open for the asylum seekers to come and go during the course of the day.

"Quite clearly, there could be issues arising from that - the asylum seekers will clearly have a lot of time on their hands and will not have an awful lot to do.

"That may well cause problems."

Vale of Glamorgan MP John Smith was at the meeting and said he is favour of accommodation centres but feels Sully is unsuitable because of its isolated location.

Two asylum seekers in France trying to reach the UK

Conservative AM David Melding said he was concerned about the lack of consultation undertaken by the Home Office with the assembly and the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

The government is facing a continuing challenge over where to house the growing thousands of asylum seekers reaching the country each year.

Attracted by more favourable conditions, in 2000, more than 80,000 applied for asylum in the UK.

Introduced with the 1999 Asylum and Immigration Act, the dispersal scheme aims to stop the influx of applicants and relieve housing pressures in the south-east of England by scattering applicants - without choice - throughout UK regions, excluding Northern Ireland.

Remote village

The Vale of Glamorgan authority would have to help immigrants find health and education services.

The disused hospital in the small, remote village of Sully - eight miles west of Cardiff on the Bristol Channel coast - has remained empty since psychiatric patients left two years ago.

It had originally opened in 1936 as a tuberculosis sanatorium and is now a grade two listed building which could became Wales' only centre for immigrants.

Home Office minister Lord Rooker has met with Mr Smith to discuss the proposals.

The Prince of Wales officially opened the Ty Hafan facility in 2001 after a lengthy fundraising campaign.