A Home Office decision to lease a former student accommodation block to house asylum seekers has angered the area's MP and councillors.

The 86-bedroom building in Broadstairs had been vacant - but over the weekend a number of people were moved onto the site, which is barely three miles from the Manston processing centre.

Neither Thanet District Council or South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay were informed beforehand of the plans and it has been reported that around 30 adults were moved to the site over the weekend.

However, it was not clear whether any were previously detained at nearby Manston and there were some reports that several came from authorities outside Kent.

The accommodation will be used for asylum seekers while they have their applications processed.

Mr Mackinlay says he is "very unhappy" about the failure of the Home Office to let anyone know.

“It is completely inappropriate," the Conservative said.

"It's near to quite a number of primary and senior schools.

"It's pretty much slap bang in the middle of a residential area. And it's causing an awful lot of upset.

"I’ve had a number of emails this morning from people very, very unhappy about it.”

Mr Mackinlay says there seems to be a question mark over whether it had the appropriate planning consent, which was being investigated by the council and could be used to block its use.

“I don't quite know where that will go because if it was appropriate for nurse training accommodation, I can't say it's vastly different in planning for other accommodation," he said.

Thanet council is said to believe the use of the site breaches planning regulations but is it not clear at this stage what those are.

However, it too was unhappy about the failure to be told and the fact it was kept under wraps.

It comes as the Home Office is under pressure to move people out of the overcrowded Manston processing site.

At one stage there were 4,000 asylum seekers there - despite it only having capacity for 1,600.

The Broadstairs site has been procured by Clearsprings Ready Homes. Under a 10-year contract, it is responsible for managing asylum seeker accommodation in England and Wales.

Mr Mackinlay said he had spoken to immigration minister Robert Jenrick who had said as it involved an outsource company, the Home Office would not directly know about it.

The Home Office has been approached to comment.