THE Home Office has confirmed that it is reviewing controversial plans to convert the Coniston Hotel in Sittingbourne into an induction centre for more than 100 asylum seekers.

Beverley Hughes, the Home Office minister, has acknowledged that consultation over the project had not been sufficiently thorough and is re-examining the deal.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s The World at One she said she was unhappy with the failure of the National Asylum Support Service to carry out adequate consultation.

She said: “I am very unhappy that having wanted to proceed with the contract in December, NASS did not go back to the local authority and local community and have a proper consultation.

“That is why I am looking again at this option in terms of where the contractual relationships are up to and what I may be able to do about it.”

There has been widespread anger in Sittingbourne after the Kent Messenger Group revealed the Government’s plans to convert the hotel in London Road into an induction centre two weeks ago.

Residents, councillors and the Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt (Lab) are all furious at what they see as a lack of transparency in the way the scheme has been handled. They are also angry about the loss of Sittingbourne’s only hotel.

Beverley Hughes said that proper consultation would have revealed these concerns sooner and ordered an independent review of NASS’s business operations. She added: “I think we have to do this much, much better.”