ABOUT 1,000 asylum seeker protesters gathered outside the former airfield at Throckmorton on Sunday to send a clear message to the Government that they were determined to win the battle against a refugee centre.

People young and old swarmed in from the surrounding villages and nearby towns to join the 180 residents in Throckmorton and Tilesford, to hear their MP pledge to fight ever inch of the way to stop the tiny hamlets being picked on yet again.

Mid Worcestershire MP Peter Luff said: "We have right on our side - we can win the planning argument - Government planning inspectors have already said there should be no development on any account. The UK already owes us such a lot for what we have already done. How dare Jeff Rooker say it is time for us to take responsibility? We have already done so by accepting the burial of 130,000 animals here."

As well as the dozens of community leaders, including the area's MEP, county, district and parish councillors, TV personality Toyah Willcox, who owns a house in Wyre Piddle, was there to lend support. She said: "This is not the right place for these people who will be transient and under stress. Putting them next to the animal burial health hazard, which stinks in high summer, and isolates them from any services, is appalling. The Government buried the dead carcass problem last year and now it is attempting to bury another problem."

County councillor Liz Tucker told the crowds that the Home Office had never put any of its plans in writing, and councillors had not yet been allowed to retain a copy of the plans.

She said the Home Office was now planning to put the centre nearer to the Tilesford houses and aims to get a road built around the perimeter of the landfill site linking the development to the new Wyre Piddle bypass.

Finally, Gary Robinson, chairman of Wyre Piddle parish council urged the crowds, who had been given pre-printed postcards, to return them with offers of help and cash pledges.