Closure of controversial Dungavel detection centre abandoned despite protests
CONTROVERSIAL Dungavel immigration detention centre will remain open despite the Home Office announcing it would be closed in September 2016.
Dungavel immigration centre was hit with protests in 2016 over the treatment of detainees
The centre had been set to close at the end of the year but plans for a replacement centre near Glasgow Airport were rejected.
A short-term holding centre was to be built in Paisley.
However, Renfrewshire Council has rejected the application.
Campaigners celebrated the planned closure of Dungavel, which had been branded "racist and inhumane" but were concerned about the proposed replacement.
The treatment of detainees prompted a series of protests before the announcement of the abandoned closure.
Protestors demand closure of Dungavel Immigration Centre
The immigration removal centre was due to close at the end of 2017
A Home Office spokesman said: "We always made clear that the closure of Dungavel immigration removal centre was dependent on the opening of a new short-term holding facility in Scotland.
As the application a facility at Paisley was rejected, Dungavel will remain open
"As the application for a new facility at Paisley was rejected, Dungavel will remain open."
Dungavel has long been a political issue, with MSPs demanding an end to the detention of children at the centre, leading to a 2010 Westminster ruling that families detained north of the border would be moved to Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire to give them access to specialist family, child and support services.
The centre will now remain open after plans for a replacement were rejected
Detainees have also taken part in action inside Dungavel, with many refusing food in a protest against a suicide at the centre in 2007.
The Home Office had said Dungavel, which holds up to 249 detainees and is the only such centre in Scotland, is "under-utilised due to its remote location".
Plans for the centre beside Glasgow Airport would have had just 51 beds and the Home Office said the "vast majority" of stays would have been for less than a week.